THE 

COST   OF   SHELTER. 


BY 


ELLEN   H.    RICHARDS, 

Instructor  in  Sanitary  Chemistry^ 
Massachusetts  Institute  of  Technology, 


FIRST   EDITION, 
FIRST    THOUSAND. 


NEW   YORK: 

JOHN   WILEY  &    SONS. 

LONDON:   CHAPMAN  &  HALL,   LIMITED, 

1905. 


Copyright,  1905, 

BY 
ELLEN   H.  RICHARDS. 


ROBERT  DRUMMOND,   PRINTER,  NEW  YORK. 


THE  HOUSEHOLD  EXISTS  FOR  ONE  OR 
MORE  OF  THE  FOLLOWING  REASONS: 

Two  or  more  persons  form  an  alliance 
(a)   for  protection  against  the  outside  world; 
(£)  for    protection    against    the    outside  world    and 
for  the  rearing  of  children; 

(c)  for   the  greater   gain  in  convenience  which  the 
common  life  can  give  over  that  of  single  effort; 

(d)  for  companionship; 

(e)  for   the    greater    independence    it    gives    to   the 
group; 

(/")   for  the  greater  ease  in  satisfying  one's  preju- 
dices or  whims. 

iii 


166763 


•\ 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I. 

PAGB 

THE  HOUSE  AND  WHAT  IT  SIGNIFIES  IN  FAMILY  LIFE.  TYPI- 
FIED IN  PIONEER  AND  COLONIAL  HOMES,  THE  CENTRES 
OF  INDUSTRY  AND  HOSPITALITY i 


CHAPTER  II. 
THE  HOUSE  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MEASURE  OF  SOCIAL  STANDING    15 

CHAPTER  III. 

LEGACIES  FROM  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY,  ILL  ADAPTED  TO 
CHANGED  CONDITIONS,  CAUSE  PHYSICAL  DETERIORATION 
AND  DOMESTIC  FRICTION 31 

CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  PLACE  OF  THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  SOCIAL  ECONOMY  OF  THE 
TWENTIETH  CENTURY 48 

CHAPTER  V. 

POSSIBILITIES  IN  SIGHT  PROVIDED  THE  HOUSEWIFE  is  PRO- 
GRESSIVE   63 


VI  TABLE  OF   CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER   VI. 

PAGE 

COST  PER  PERSON  AND  PER  FAMILY  FOR  VARIOUS  GRADES  OF 
SHELTER.  .  81 


CHAPTER  VII. 

RELATION  BETWEEN  COST  OF  SHELTER  AND  TOTAL  INCOME 
TO  BE  EXPENDED 97 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
To  RENT  OR  TO  OWN:     A  DIFFICULT  QUESTION 108 


THE  COST  OF   SHELTER. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  HOUSE  AND  WHAT  IT  SIGNIFIES  IN  FAMILY 
LIFE;  TYPIFIED  IN  PIONEER  AND  COLONIAL 
HOMES,  THE  CENTERS  OF  INDUSTRY  AND  HOS- 
PITALITY. 

"There  is  no  noble  life  without  a  noble  aim." — CHARLES  DOLE. 

THE  word  Home  to  the  Anglo-Saxon  race  calls  to  mind 
some  definite  house  as  the  family  abiding-place.  Around 
it  cluster  the  memories  of  childhood,  the  aspirations  of 
youth,  the  sorrows  of  middle  life. 

The  most  potent  spell  the  nineteenth  century  cast  on 
its  youth  was  the  yearning  for  a  home  of  their  own,  not 
a  piece  of  their  father's.  The  spirit  of  the  age  working 
in  the  minds  of  men  led  them  ever  westward  to  conquer 
for  themselves  a  homestead,  forced  them  to  go,  leaving 
the  aged  behind,  and  the  graves  of  the  weak  on  the  way. 

There  must  be  a  strong  race  principle  behind  a  move- 


THE   COST   OF   SHELTER. 


ment  of  such  magnitude,  with  such  momentous  conse- 
quences.   Elbow  room,  space,  and  isolation  to  give  free 
play  to  individual  preference,  characterized  pioneer  days. 
The  cord  that  bound  the  whole  was  love  of  home, — 
one's  own  home, — even  if  tinged  with  impatience  of  the 
restraints  it  imposed,    for  home  and  house  do  imply  a 
certain  restraint  in  individual  wishes.     And  here,  per- 
haps, is  the  greatest  significance  of  the  family  house. 
It  cannot  perfectly  suit  all  members  in  its  details,  but 
in  its  great  office,  that  of   shelter  and  privacy — owner- 
ship — the  house  of  the  nineteenth  century  stands  supreme. 
No   other  age  ever  provided  so  many  houses  for  single 
families.     It  stands  between  the    community  houses  of 
primitive  times  and  the  hives  of  the  modern  city  tenements. 
As  sociologically  defined,  the  family  means  a  common 
house— common,  that  is,  to  the  family,  but  excluding  all 
else.     This  exclusiveness  is  foreshadowed  in  the  habits  of 
the  majority  of  animals,  each  pair  preempting  a  partic- 
ular log  or  burrow  or  tree  in  which  to  rear  its  young,  to 
which  it  retreats  for  safety  from  enemies.    Primitive  man 
first  borrowed  the  skins  of  animals  and  their  burrowing 
habits.    The  space  under  fallen  trees  covered  with  moss 
and  twigs  grew  into  the  hut  covered  with  bark  or  sod. 
The  skins  permitted  the  portable  tent. 

It  is  indeed  a  far  cry  from  these  rude  defences  against 
wind  and  weather  to  the  dwelling-houses  of  the  well-to-do 
family  in  any  country  to-day,  but  the  need  of  the  race 


THE    HOUSE    AND    WHAT    IT    SIGNIFIES.  3 

is  just  the  same :  protection,  safety  from  danger,  a  shield 
for  the  young  child,  a  place  where  it  can  grow  normally 
in  peaceful  quiet.  It  behooves  the  community  to  inquire 
whether  the  houses  of  to-day  are  fulfilling  the  primary 
purposes  of  the  race  in  the  midst  of  the  various  other 
uses  to  which  modern  man  is  putting  them. 

As  already  shown,  shelter  in  its  first  derivation,  as  well 
as  in  its  common  use,  signifies  protection  from  the  weather. 
Bodily  warmth  saves  food,  therefore  is  an  economy  in 
living.  From  the  first  it  also  implied  protection  from 
enemies,  a  safe  retreat  from  attack  and  a  refuge  when 
wounded.  But  above  all  else  it  has,  through  the  ages, 
stood  for  a  safe  and  retired  place  for  the  bringing  up  of 
the  young  of  the  species. 

The  colonial  houses  of  New  England  with  large 
living-room,  dominated  by  the  huge  fireplace  with  its 
outfit  of  cooking  utensils,  with  groups  of  buildings  for 
different  uses  clustered  about  them,  giving  protection  to 
the  varied  industries  of  the  homestead,  illustrate  the 
most  perfect  type  of  family  life.  Each  member  had  a 
share  in  the  day's  work,  therefore  to  each  it  was  home. 
To  the  old  homestead  many  a  successful  business  man 
returns  to  show  his  grandchildren  the  attic  with  its 
disused  loom  and  spinning-wheel;  the  shop  where 
farm-implements  were  made,  in  the  days  of  long  winter 
storms,  to  the  accompaniment  of  legend  and  gossip; 
the  dairy,  no  longer  redolent  of  cream.  These  are  re- 


4  THE    COST    OF    SHELTER. 

minders  of  a  time  past  and  gone,  before  the  greed  of 
gain  had  robbed  even  these  houses  of  their  peace.  The 
backward  glance  of  this  generation  is  too  apt  to  stop  at 
the  transition  period,  when  the  factory  had  taken  the 
interesting  manufactures  out  of  the  hands  of  the  house- 
wife and  left  the  homestead  bereft  of  its  best,  when  the 
struggle  to  make  it  a  modern  money-making  plant,  for 
which  it  was  never  designed,  drove  the  young  people 
away  to  less  arduous  days  and  more  exciting  evenings. 

This  stage  of  farm  life  was  altogether  unlovely,  not 
wholly  of  necessity,  but  because  the  adjustment  was  most 
painful  to  the  feelings  and  most  difficult  to  the  muscles 
of  the  el'ders. 

Because  the  family  ideal  was  the  ruling  motive,  the 
house-building  of  the  colonial  period  shows  a  more 
perfect  adaptation  to  family  life  than  any  other  age  has 
developed. 

Where  is  the  boasted  adaptability  of  the  American? 
He  should  be  ready  to  see  the  effect  of  the  inevitable 
mechanical  changes  and  modify  his  ideas  to  suit.  For 
it  cannot  be  too  often  reiterated  that  it  is  a  case  of  ideas, 
not  of  wood  and  stone  and  law. 

This  homestead  has  passed  into  history  as  completely 
as  has  the  Southern  colonial  type,  differing  only  in 
arrangement.  Climate,  as  well  as  domestic  conditions, 
demanded  a  more  complete  separation  of  the  manu- 
facturing processes,  including  cooking,  laundry,  etc., 


THE   HOUSE    AND   WHAT   IT    SIGNIFIES.  5 

otherwise  the  ideal  was  the  same.  "The  house"  meant 
a  family  life,  a  gracious  hospitality,  a  busy  hive  of  in- 
dustry, a  refuge  indeed  from  social  as  well  as  physical 
storms.  Work  and  play,  sorrow  and  pleasure,  all  were 
connected  with  its  outward  presentment  as  with  the 
thought.  For  its  preservation  men  fought  and  women 
toiled,  but,  alas!  machinery  has  swept  away  the  last  ves- 
tige of  this  life  and,  try  as  the  philanthropist  may  to  bring 
it  back,  it  will  never  return.  The  very  essence  of  that  life 
was  the  making  of  things,  the  preparation  for  winter 
while  it  was  yet  summer,  the  furnishing  of  the  bridal 
chest  years  before  marriage.  Fancy  a  bride  to-day 
wearing  or  using  in  the  house  anything  five  years  old! 

There  are  no  more  pioneer  and  colonial  communities 
on  this  continent.  Railroads  and  steamboats  and 
electric  power  have  made  this  rural  life  a  thing  of  the 
past.  Let  us  not  waste  tears  on  its  vanishing,  but  ad- 
dress ourselves  to  the  future. 

There  are  two  directions  in  which  great  change  in 
household  conditions  has  occurred  quite  outside  the 
volition  of  the  housekeeper.  They  are  the  disappearance 
of  industries,  and  lack  of  permanence  in  the  homestead. 
Those  who  are  busily  occupied  in  productive  work  of 
their  own  are  contented  and  usually  happy.  The 
results  of  their  efforts,  stored  for  future  use  —barns  filled 
with  hay  or  grain,  shelves  of  linen  and  preserves  —yield 
satisfaction. 


6  THE   COST   OF   SHELTER. 

Destructive  consumption  may  be  pleasurable  for  the 
moment,  but  does  not  satisfy.  The  child  pulls  the 
stuffing  from  the  doll  with  pleasure,  but  asks  for  another 
in  half  an  hour.  The  delicious  meal  daintily  served  is 
a  joy  for  an  hour.  A  room  put  in  perfect  order,  clean, 
tastefully  decorated,  is  a  delight  to  the  .eye  for  three 
hours  and  then  it  must  be  again  cleaned  and  rearranged. 
Is  this  productive  work?  Is  there  any  reason  why  we 
should  be  satisfied  with  it  or  happy  in  it? 

In  an  earlier  time,  that  from  which  we  derive  so  many 
of  our  cherished  ideals,  the  house  built  by  or  for  the 
young  people  was  used  as  a  homestead  by  their  children 
and  their  children's  children.  Customs  grew  up  slowly, 
and  for  some  reason.  Furniture,  collected  as  wanted, 
found  its  place;  all  the  routine  went  as  by  clockwork. 

Saturday's  baking  of  bread  and  pies  went  each  on  to 
its  own  shelf,  as  the  cows  went  each,  to  her  own  stall.     If 

the  duties  were  physically  hard,  the  routine  saved  worrying. 
To-day  how  few  of  us  live  in  the  house  we  began 

life  withl    How  few  in  that  we  occupied  even  ten  years 

ago!    And  this  number  is  growing  smaller  and  smaller. 

The  housewife  has  not  time  to  form  habits  of  her  own; 

she  engages  a  maid  and  expects  her  to  fall  at  once  into 

the  family  ways,  when  the  family  has  no  ways. 
In  the  sociological  sense,  shelter  may  mean  protection 

from  noise,  from  too  close  contact  with  other   human 

beings,  enemies  only  in  the  sense  of    depriving  us  of 


THE    HOUSE    AND    WHAT    IT    SIGNIFIES.  7 

valuable  nerve-force.  It  should  mean  sheltering  the 
children  from  contact  with  degrading  influences. 

Charles  P.  Neill,  United  States  Commissioner  of 
Labor,  in  his  address  at  the  New  York  School  of  Philan- 
thropy, July  16,  1905,  said:  "In  my  own  estimation 
home,  above  all  things,  means  privacy.  It  means  the 
possibility  of  keeping  your  family  off  frpm  other  families. 
There  must  be  a  separate  house,  and  as  far  as  possible 
separate  rooms,  so  that  at  an  early  period  of  life  the  idea 
of  rights  to  property,  the  right  to  things,  to  privacy,  may 
be  instilled." 

There  may  be  such  a  thing  as  too  much  shelter.  To 
cover  too  closely  breeds  decay.  Are  we  in  danger  of 
covering  ourselves  and  our  children  too  closely  from 
sun  and  wind  and  rain,  making  them  weak  and  less  resist- 
ant than  they  should  be?  The  prevalence  of  tubercu- 
losis and  its  cure  by  fresh  air  seems  to  indicate  this. 
The  attempt  to  gain  privacy  under  prevailing  conditions 
tends  this  way. 

Hitherto  students  of  social  economics  have  usually  con- 
sidered the  most  pressing  problem  in  the  life  of  the  wage- 
earner  to  be  that  of  sufficient  and  suitable  food.  But  in 
any  large  city  and  in  most  smaller  communities  there  are 
found  those  who  have  refined  instincts,  aspirations  for 
a  life  of  physical  and  moral  cleanness,  who  by  force 
of  circumstances  are  ob'iged  to  come  in  contact  with 
filth  and  squalor  and  careless  disorder  in  order  to  find 


g  THE  COST  OF  SHELTER. 

shelter.  If  they  can  be  kept  from  degenerating,  their 
rise  when  it  comes  will  lift  those  below  them,  but  it  is 
a  Herculean  task  to  lift  them  by  lifting  all  below  as  weU. 
The  burden  which  presses  most  heavily  on  this  valu- 
able material  for  social  betterment  is  that  of  shelter 
rather  than  of  food. 

The  thought  underlying  this  whole  series  on  Cost  is 
that  the  place  to  put  the  leaven  of  progress  is  in  the 
middle.  The  class  to  work  for  is  the  great  mass  of 
intelligent,  industrious,  and  ambitious  young  people 
turned  out  by  our  public  schools  with  certain  ideals  for 
self -betterment,  but  in  grave  danger  of  losing  heart  in 
the  crush  due  to  the  pressure  of  society  around  them 
and  above  them.  They  fear  to  incur  the  responsibility 
of  marriage  when  they  see  the  pecuniary  requirements 
it  involves. 

This  growing  body  makes  up  so  large  a  proportion  of 
the  whole  in  America  that,  once  aroused,  it  may  become 
an  all-powerful  force  for  regeneration,  thanks  to  the 
pervading  influence  of  public-school  education  when 
enlisted  on  the  side  of  right.  Faith  in  the  uprightness 
of  American  youth  is  so  strong  that  strenuous  effort 
for  their  enlightenment  is  justified.  Once  they  have 
their  attention  drawn  to  the  need  of  action,  they  will  act. 
Self-preservation  is  one  of  the  strongest  instincts,  and  it 
may  be  dangerous  to  call  upon  the  self-interest  of  these 
inexperienced  souls;  but  for  the  sake  of  the  results  we 


THE   HOUSE   AND   WHAT   IT   SIGNIFIES.  9 

must  risk  the  lesser  evil,  if  we  can  develop  a  resolution  to 
secure  a  personal  and  race  efficiency. 

When  the  young  people,  with  a  deep  appreciation  of 
the  possibilities  of  sane  and  wholesome  living,  marry 
and  attempt  to  realize  their  ideals,  the  conditions  are 
all  against  them.  They  find  little  sympathy  in  their 
yearnings  for  a  rational  life,  and  soon  give  up  the  effort, 
deciding  that  they  are  too  peculiar.  They  slip  almost 
insensibly  into  the  routine  of  their  neighbors.  There 
is  great  need  of  a  cooperation  of  like-minded  young 
married  people  to  form  a  little  community,  setting  its 
own  standards  and  living  a  fairly  independent  life.  Two 
or  three  such  groups  would  do  more  than  many  sermons 
to  awaken  attention  to  the  problem  before  the  race 
to-day.  Shall  man  yield  himself  to  the  tendencies  of 
natural  selection  and  be  modified  out  of  existence  by 
the  pressure  of  his  environment,  or  shall  he  turn  upon 
himself  some  of  the  knowledge  of  Nature's  forces  he 
has  gained  and  by  "conscious  evolution"  begin  an 
adaptation  of  the  environment  to  the  organism?  For 
we  no  longer  hold  with  Robert  Owen  and  the  socialists 
that  man  is  necessarily  controlled  and  moulded  by  his 
surroundings,  that  he  is  absolutely  subject  to  the  laws 
of  animal  evolution.  A  new  era  will  dawn  when  man 
sees  his  power  over  his  own  future.  Then,  and  not 
till  then,  will  come  again  that  willingness  to  sacrifice 
present  ease  and  pleasure  for  the  sake  of  race  progress, 


10  THE    COST    OF    SHELTER. 

which  alone  can  make  the  restrained  life  a  satisfac- 
tion. 

The  environment  is,  more  largely  than  we  think,  the 
house  and  the  manner  of  life  it  forces  upon  us.  There- 
fore the  first  point  of  attack  is  the  shelter  under  which 
the  family  life  of  the  newly  married  pair  establishes 
itself.  If  it  is  too  large  for  their  income,  it  leads 
to  extravagance  and  debt  before  the  first  two  years 
have  passed;  if  it  is  too  small,  it  cramps  the  generous 
and  hospitable  impulses.  If  unsuited  to  this  need,  it 
irritates  and  deforms  character,  as  a  plaster  cast  com- 
presses a  limb  encased  in  it. 

Imagine  the  young  people  beginning  life  in  the  average 
city  flat,  at  a  rent  of  twenty  to  thirty  dollars  a  month, 
with  its  shams,  its  makeshifts,  its  depressing,  unsanitary, 
morally  unsafe  quarters  for  the  maid,  its  friction  with 
janitor  and  landlord — the  whole  sordid  round  necessitated 
by  the  mere  manner  of  building,  and  by  that  only. 

A  few  strong  souls  flee  to  the  country.  Counting  the 
cost  and  finding  that  all  the  earnings  go  to  mere  living, 
they  decide  to  get  that  living  in  company  with  nature 
under  free  skies — their  own  employers.  Such  may  live  in 
Altruria  with  the  happy  zest  of  the  authors  of  that 
charming  sketch. 

It  is  not  given  to  many  of  earth's  children  to  be  so  well 
mated  and  so  heavenly-wise.  The  young  man  has  been 
brought  up  to  consider  the  house  the  young  wife's  pre- 


THE   HOUSE   AND   WHAT   IT   SIGNIFIES.  11 

rogative,  and  she — well,  she  has  been  trained  to  believe 
that  housewifely  wisdom  will  come  to  her  as  unsought  as 
measles. 

Two  thirds  the  friction  in  the  early  years  of  married 
life  is  caused  by  the  house  and  its  defects,  resulting  in 
dissatisfaction,  disenchantment,  and  the  flight  to  a  hotel 
or  non-housekeeping  apartment. 

If  some  of  the  problems  to  be  faced  and  the  difficul- 
ties in  solving  them  could  be  presented  to  the  young  people 
to  be  studied  and  discussed  before  the  actual  encounter 
came,  they  would  be  more  prepared 

In  discussing  this  part  of  the  subject,  as  in  the  con- 
sideration of  the  Cost  of  Living  in  general  and  the 
Cost  of  Food,  we  shall  deal  in  particular  with  incomes 
of  from  $1000  to  $5000  a  year  for  families  of  five,  recog- 
nizing that  under  present-day  conditions  the  annual 
sum  of  $1500  to  $3000  means  the  greatest  struggle  be- 
tween desires  and  power  of  gratifying  them. 

On  the  surface  it  appears  that  the  things  which  go  to 
make  up  delicate  cleanly  living  cost  more  and  more  each 
year,  with  no  limit  in  sight.  It  is  not  only  the  poet  who 
moves  from  one  boarding-house  to  another;  the  young 
clerk  and  struggling  business  man  go  into  smaller  and 
smaller  quarters  until  the  traditional  limit  of  room  to 
swing  a  cat  is.  reached. 

The  constantly  diminishing  space  occupied  by  a 
family  seems  to  prove  that  the  40%  increase  in  the  cost 


' 


12  THE   COST  OF  SHELTER. 

of  living  within  a  few  years  is  not  caused  by  an  advance 
in  the  necessary  cost  of  food;  it  is  certainly  not  due  to 
the  increased  cost  of  necessary  clothes.  It  is  more  than 
probable  that  the  increasing  cost  of  shelter  and  all  that 
it  implies — increased  water-supply,  service,  repairs,  etc. — 
is  the  main  factor  in  the  undoubtedly  increased  expense. 
This  will  be  considered  in  some  detail  in  Chapter  VIII. 

While  the  socialist  may  take  the  ground  thaTrsalaries 
must  be  raised  to  keep  pace  with  the  rise  in  living 
expenses,  the  student  of  social  ethics— Euthenics,  or  the 
science  of  better  living— may  well  ask  a  consideration  of 
the  topic  from  another  standpoint.  Is  this  increased 
cost  resulting  in  higher  efficiency?  Are  the  people 
growing  more  healthy,  well-favored,  well-proportioned, 
stronger,  happier?  If  not,  then  is  there  not  a  fallacy 
in  the  common  idea  that  more  money  spent  means  a 
fuUer  life? 

Recent  examination  of  school  children  in  various 
cities  in  England  and  America  has  revealed  a  state  of 
physical  ill-being  most  deplorable  in  the  present,  and 
horrifying  to  contemplate  for  its  future  results.  One 
has  only  to  keep  one's  eyes  open  in  passing  the  streets 
to  become  aware  of  the  physical  deterioration  of  thousands 
of  the  wage-earners.  One  has  only  to  listen  to  the  house- 
wife's complaints  of  inefficiency,  lack  of  strength  among 
the  housemaids,  to  realize  that  the  world's  work  is  not 
being  well  done  in  so  far  as  it  depends  upon  human  hands. 


THE    HOUSE    AND    WHAT    IT    SIGNIFIES.  13 

This  loss  of  efficiency  is  usually  attributed  to  insuffi- 
cient food  and  long  hours,  but  it  is  at  least  an  open 
question  if  housing  conditions  are  not  the  more  potent 
factor  not  only  in  the  case  of  the  very  poor,  but  even  in 
the  case  of  the  family  having  an  income  of  $2000  a  year. 
Life  in  a  boarding-house  adapted  from  the  use  by  one 
family  to  that  of  five  or  six  without  increase  of  bathing 
and  ventilating  conveniences,  with  old-style  plumbing, 
cannot  be  mentally  or  bodily  invigorating. 

The  house  cannot  be  said  to  be  a  place  of  safety  so 
long  as  the  ''great  white  plague"  lurks  in  every  dark 
corner — tuberculosis,  colds,  influenza,  etc.,  fasten  them- 
selves upon  its  occupants.  Explorers  exposed  to 
extremes  of  weather  do  not  thus  suffer.  The  dark, 
damp  house  incubates  the  germs. 

But  homes  there  must  be:  places  of  safety  for  children, 
of  refuge  for  elders.  Men  will  marry  and  women  may 
keep  house.  How  shall  it  be  managed  so  as  to  be  in 
harmony  with  present-day  demands?  Certainly  not  by 
ignoring  the  difficulties.  Progress  in  any  direction  does 
not  come  through  wringing  of  hands  and  deploring  the 
decadence  of  the  present  generation.  President  Roose- 
velt's advice  is  to  bring  up  boys  and  girls  to  overcome  ob- 
stacles, not  to  ignore  them.  Let  the  educated,  intelligent 
young  people  join  in  devising  a  way  to  surmount  this  ob- 
stacle as  the  engineers  of  1890  invented  new  ways  of  cross- 
ing impassable  gorges  and  "impossible  "  mountain  ranges. 


!4  THE   COST    OF    SHELTER. 

The  writer  has  no  ready-prepared  panacea  to  offer. 
Patent  medicine  is  not  the  remedy.  This  kind  cometh 
out  only  by  fasting  and  prayer.  A  long  course  of  diet 
is  needed  to  cure  a  chronic  disease. 

This  little  volume  is  intended  merely  as  a  spur  to  the 
imagination  of  the  indolent  student,  to  arouse  him  to  the 
mentd  effort  required  to  deal  with  the  readjustment  of 
ideas  to  conditions  before  it  is  too  late. 

It  is  no  exaggeration  to  say  that  the  social  well-being 
of  the  community  is  threatened.  The  habits  of  years 
are  broken  up;  sad  to  say,  the  middle-aged  will  suffer 
unrelieved,  but  the  young  can  be  incited  to  grapple 
with  the  situation  and  hew  out  for  themselves  a  way 
through. 

Certain  elements  in  the  problem  will  be  touched  upon 
in  the  following  pages  as  a  result  of  much  going  to  and 
fro  in  the  "most  favored  land  on  earth."  Certain 
questions  will  be  raised  as  to  what  constitutes  a  home 
and  a  shelter  for  the  family  in  the  twentieth-century 
sense  of  both  family  and  shelter. 


CHAPTER  II. 

THE  HOUSE  CONSIDERED  AS  A  MEASURE  OF  SOCIAL 
STANDING. 

It  is  not  what  we  lack,  but  what  we  see  others  have,  that  makes 
us  discontented. 

THERE  has  been  noted  in  every  age  a  tendency  to 
measure  social  preeminence  by  the  size  and  magnifi- 
cence of  the  family  abode.  Mediaeval  castles,  Venetian 
palaces,  colonial  mansions,  all  represented  a  form  of 
social  importance,  what  Veblen  has  called  conspicuous 
waste.  This  was  largely  shown  in  maintaining  a  large 
retinue  and  in  giving  lavish  entertainments.  The  so- 
called  patronage  of  the  arts — furnishings,  fabrics,  pic- 
tures, statues,  valued  to  this  day — came  under  the 
same  head  of  rivalry  in  expenditure. 

In  America  a  similar  aspiration  results  in  immense 
establishments  far  beyond  the  needs  of  the  immediate 
family.  But,  unlike  society  in  the  middle  ages,  social 
aspiration  does  not  stop  short  at  a  well-defined  line. 
In  the  modern  state  each  level  reaches  up  toward  the 
next  higher  and,  failing  to  balance  itself,  drops  into  the 
abyss  which  never  fills. 


j6  THE  COST   OF   SHELTER. 

There  is  no  contented  layer  of  humanity  to  equalize 
the  pressure;  heads  and  hands  are  thrust  up  through 
from  below  at  every  point.  Democracy  has  taken 
possession  of  the  age  and  must  be  reckoned  with  on  all 

sides. 

At  first  sight  sumptuous  housing  might  seem  to  be  the 
least  objectionable  form  of  conspicuous  waste.     Safer 
than  rich  food,  less  wasteful  than  gorgeous  clothing,  but, 
as  Veblen  truly  says,  "through  discrimination  in  favor  of 
visible  consumption  it  has  come  about  that  the  domestic 
life  of  most  classes  is  relatively  shabby.    As  a  consequence 
people  habitually  screen  their  private  life  from  observa- 
tion."   This  is  from  a  different  motive  than  the  instinct 
of  privacy,  of  personal  withdrawal  for  rest  and  quiet. 
This  shabby  private  life  Is  why  true  hospitality  is  disap- 
pearing.   The  chance  guest  is  no  longer  welcome  to  the 
family  table;  we  are   ashamed  of  our  daily  routine,  or 
we  have  an  idea  that  our  fare  is  not  worthy  of  being 
Shared.    Whatever  it  is,  unconscious  as  it  often  is,  it  is 
a  canker  in  the  family  life  of  to-day.     It  leads  to  selfish- 
ness, to  a  laxness  in  home  manners  very  demoralizing. 
It  is  doubtless  one  of  the  great  factors  in  the  distinct 
deterioration  of  children's  public  manners. 

Because  the  house  is  held  to  be  the  visible  evidence 
of  social  standing,  because  its  location,  style  of  architec- 
ture, fittings  and  furniture  may  be  made  to  proclaim  the 
pretensions  of  its  inhabitants,  it  is  often  dishonest  and 


THE   HOUSE  A   MEASURE   OF    SOCIAL   STANDING.      1 7 

one  of  the  sources  of  the  prevalent  untruth  in  other 
things,  since  dishonesty  in  housing  has  been  not  infre- 
quently one  of  the  first  signs  of  dishonesty  in  business. 
To  move  to  a  less  fashionable  quarter  is  to  confess  finan= 
cial  stress  at  once. 

It  is  because  the  concomitant  expenses  of  an  establish- 
ment may  be  curtailed  without  attracting  public  notice 
that  a  moral  danger  exists.  The  outside  shell  is  not 
the  whole  nor  even  the  chief  outlay.  The  operating 
expenses  run  away  with  more  money  than  the  house 
itself,  and  it  is  in  these  that  the  family,  conscious  of 
impending  ruin,  curtail,  and  thus  become  dishonest  in 
their  own  souls. 

The  moral  of  it  all  is  to  live  just  a  little  below  the 

'  probable  limit,  whatever  that  may  be,  rather  than  to 

assume  a  greater  income  than  is  quite  certain.     Granted 

that  in  the  quickly  changing  conditions  of  to-day  this  is 

difficult,  it  is  not  often  impossible. 

It  is  only  needed  to  set  some  other  standard  of  social 
position  than  shelter  and  to  use  the  house  for  its  legitimate 
purposes  only,  that  of  an  abode  of  the  family  in  health 
and  joyful  cooperation.  The  class  for  which  this  series 
is  written  should  seek  a  shelter  sufficient  for  these  normal 
uses,  and  make  it  so  home- like  that  friends  will  gladly 
share  it  when  permitted. 

Let  good  manners,  keen  intelligence,  bright  and 
entertaining  conversation  take  the  place  of  the  showy 


!3  THE    COST    OP    SHELTER. 

but    frequently    uncomfortable    houses    and    wholesale 
entertainments  of  to-day. 

It  is  time  that  a  beginning  was  made  of  that  form 
of  social  pleasure  and  mental  recreation  which  the  cen- 
tury must  develop,  or  fail  of  its  promise. 

What  is  the  value,  of  present-day  knowledge  if  not  to 
stimulate  the  conscious  group,  through  the  individual 
perhaps,  but  the  group  finally,  to  better  use  of  its  powers 
and  opportunities  toward  a  higher  form  of  social  life  ? 

We  have  been  told  that  the  house  should  be  as  much 
an  expression  of  individuality  as  clothes.  Since  clothes 
are  constantly  and  easily  changed,  and  a  family  home 
built  to  order  is  comparatively  permanent,  such  expres- 
sion in  wood  or  stone  should  be  carefully  thought  out; 
but  how  rarely  do  we  gain  a  pleasant  impression  from 
the  houses  built  for  the  purpose  of  setting  forth  social 
standards!  The  owner  and  the  architect  have  neither 
of  them  the  highest  ideals,  and  a  sort  of  ready-made, 
composite,  often  irritating,  always  displeasing  result 
follows.  The  pretence  shows  through  more  often  than 
the  occupant  realizes. 

Society  has  the  power  to  regulate  its  own  conven- 
tions. Once  convinced  that  it  is  dangerous  to  put  the 
strain  of  living  on  to  mere  superficial  pretence,  mere 
location*,  ornament,  new  standards  will  be  set  up;  as, 
indeed,  they  are  under  other  conditions.  In  frontier 
life,  for  instance,  where  shortness  of  tenure  is  "recognized, 


THE   HOUSE   A   MEA6URB   Of   9OCIA1  "STANlflTG.       1 9 

dress  and  the  table  take  the  place  of  the  house  as  indica- 
tions. In  a  mining  town,  one  is  astonished  at  the  cos- 
tumes seen  on  persons  issuing  from  insignificant  houses, 
and  at  the  excellent  bill  of  fare  in  a  restaurant  with 
the  barest  necessities  of  furnishing.  Cursory  observa- 
tion often  reads  the  signs  of  civilization  wrongly.  The 
eastern  traveller,  accustomed  to  the  outward  glitter  and 
the  finish  of  settled  communities,  fails  to  interpret  the 
real  efficiency  of  a  more  flexible  society.  West  of  the 
Mississippi,  that  new  empire  we  are  just  beginning  to 
appreciate,  good  food  is  recognized  as  of  prime  impor- 
tance, dress  gives  an  opportunity  for  showing  conspicu- 
ous waste,  and  buildings  are  made  for  show  only  when 
permanence  of  residence  is  assured. 

Let  society  once  thoroughly  understand  that  safe 
shelter  is  essential  to  its  very  life,  that  this  safety  ia 
threatened,  if  not  lost,  by  present  habits,  and,  by 
quick  money-making  schemes  in  house-building,  it 
will  establish  standards  of  living  which  shall  not  only 
be  for  the  material  welfare,  but  for  the  mental,  moral, 
and  spiritual  progress  of  the  race. 

This  progress  can  be  secured  by  applying  centrifugal 
force  to  congested  districts,  by  interesting  capitalists  to 
consider  housing  at  the  same  time  with  manufacturing 
plants,  not  only  providing  safe,  economical  houses, 
but  by  making  it  socially  possible  to  live  in  them  on 
moderate  incomes. 


20  THE   COST   OF    SHELTER. 

The  rising  half,  we  must  remember,  is  more  affected 
by  social  conventions  than  the  submerged  tenth. 

The  well-to-do  should  consider  more  conscientiously 
those  who  recruit  their  ranks,  who,  if  started  right  with- 
out danger  of  debt,  will  have  freedom  to  advance.  The 
present  muddle  has  come  about  in  part  because  no  one 
has  taken  the  trouble  to  investigate  the  reasons.  The 
young  family  with  $3000  a  year  has  ideals  for  the  man- 
ners and  morals  of  the  children  which  are  not  satisfied 
with  those  of  the  inexpensive  tenement  quarter.  Pre- 
vention they  consider  better  than  cure,  hence  they  pay 
higher  rent  than  the  income  warrants  to  secure  elevating 
examples  and  morally  wholesome  surroundings. 

A  single  family  cannot  control  a  whole  street,  although 
cooperation  can  accomplish  a  great  deal  in  the  way  of 
congenial  neighborhoods.  But  the  risk  involved,  the 
liability  to  error  of  judgment,  as  well  as  the  large  out- 
lay of  capital,  at  once  prevents  the  adoption  of  this  means 
of  satisfactory  housing  for  the  business  and  professional 
class  to  any  great  extent,  at  least  in  the  city.  The  acumen 
needed  to  discover  the  profitable  in  real  estate,  the  skill 
to  acquire  large  contiguous  tracts  of  land,  both  belong  to 
the  capitalist.  Only  when  he  is  a  philanthropist  besides, 
is  the  housing  question  safe  in  his  hands.  Such  an 
example  we  find  in  the  Morris  houses,  Willoughby  Ave., 
Brooklyn,  N.  Y.  This  set  of  family  dwellings  was 
put  up  to  meet  this  very  need.  Congenial  neighborhood, 


THE   HOUSE   A  MEASURE   OF   SOCIAL   STANDING. 


safe  playgrounds  for  the  children,  labor-saving  devices 
for  the  housekeeper.  When  first  built  they  were  in  advance 
of  anything  in  an  eastern  city  of  their  class.  To-day 


STEUBEN      STREET 


EMERSON    PLA'CE 


X 

—  b  — 

w 

__ 

_J 

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mnPfP 

. 

ilr 

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ALLEY 

The  Morris  Building  Company's  Block  of  Single  Houses, 
with  Central  Heating  Plant,  Brooklyn,  New  York. 

Mr.    Pratt   has   even   more   advanced  ideas  which  will 
take  form  in  the  f  dture. 


26 


THE   COST   OF   SHELTER. 


These  attractive  and  comfortable  houses,  so  near  the 
working  places  of  the  teachers  and  professional  and  busi- 


The  Morris  Building  Company's  Block  of  Single  Houses, 
with  Central  Heating  Plant,  Brooklyn,  New  York. 

ness  men  who  occupy  them,  were  possible  only  because 
of  the  comparative  cheapness  of   the  land,  which  had 


THE   HOUSE  A   MEASURE    OF   SOCIAL   STANDING.       27 

been  held  undesirable  for  high-class  single  houses,  not 
for  sanitary  reasons,  but  solely  on  account  of  social 
conditions.  This  cluster  of  forty  houses  makes  its  own 
atmosphere.  This  is  the  lesson  to  be  learned. 


The  Morris  Building  Company's  Block  of  Single  Houses, 
with  Central  Heating  Plant,  Brooklyn,  New  York. 

groups  of  like-minded  families  make  their  own  surround-/ 

ings.     The  capitalist  will  soon  learn  where  his  interest  lies.) 

Very   probably   it   will   be   necessary   to    enlarge   the 

scope    and,    perhaps,    to    build    two  stories  higher,  so 


28  THE    COST   OF   SHELTER. 

that  the  elders  and  perhaps  bachelors  of  both  sexes, 
who  do  not  care  for  the  garden,  may  help  to  bear  the 
expense  of  the  children's  playground.  Whatever  form 
the  advance  may  take,  this  is  a  sign-post  in  the  right 
direction. 

In  the  nature  of  things,  however,  the  first  experiments 
will  be  costly  and  must  be  combined  with  business  of 
a  sure  kind.  In  this  instance  the  heating  and  hot-water 
supply  was  made  possible  by  a  combination  with  factory 
plant.  But  if  a  larger  group  of,  say,  one  hundred 
houses  were  run  by  a  central  establishment,  the  Mor- 
ris Building  Company  estimates  the  cost  at  about  fifty 
dollars  per  year. 

These  houses  will  be  referred  to  again  under  Chapter 
VI,  but  the  especial  value  of  this  experiment  was  its 
social  significance.  How  much  better  to  keep  desirable 
land  for  residential  purposes  by  such  means  than  to 
permit  families  to  move  away  and  give  up  satisfactory 
dwellings  solely  because  the  lower  end  of  the  street  has 
a  few  foreigners!  Our  older  cities  abound  in  instances 
of  this  quick  abandonment  of  most  desirable  streets 
without  any  concerted  effort  to  retain  their  character. 

The  dangerous  sanitary  degeneration  of  these  aban- 
doned houses  is  one  of  the  worst  features  of  the  situ- 
ation and  a  prolific  cause  of  the  overcrowding  of  cities. 

The  more  thoughtful  students  of  progressive  tendencies 
are  grouping  themselves  in  "parks"  where  houses  are 


THE   HOUSE   A   MEASURE   OF   SOCIAL   STANDING.      2Q 

put  up  with  the  aid  of  the  capitalist  under  such  restric- 
tions as  to  price  as  is  supposed  to  insure  a  congenial 
neighborhood,  and  under  such  regulations  as  to  land 
as  to  prevent  manufacturing  establishments.  When  these 
plans  are  not  purely  speculative,  designed  to  entrap  the 
young  people  by  their  best  hopes  of  a  permanent  home, 
much  satisfaction  may  come  from  the  plan.  But  even 
in  this  country  or  suburban  life  the  shadow  of  fashion 
falls  sooner  or  later,  and  the  savings  vanish  with  the 
years.  Some  deeper  principle  must  come  into  play, 
some  stronger  force  than  mere  whim  of  society  leaders, 
before  our  young  people  can  be  released  from  the  bondage 
of  living  on  the  right  side  of  a  street  under  penalty  of 
social  ostracism. 

There  are  gratifying  indications  of  an  awakening. 
The  following  statement  appeared  in  a  newspaper  of  a 
recent  date: 

"A  corporation  of  women  has  been  formed  in 
Indianapolis,  Ind.,  for  the  purpose  of  building  small 
but  artistic  houses  for  people  of  moderate  means. 
All  of  the  directors  are  business  women;  one  of 
the  vice-presidents  is  Miss  Elizabeth  Browning,  the 
city  librarian,  and  another  is  the  principal  of  one 
of  the  public  schools.  The  secretary  has  for  some 
time  been  in  charge  of  the  office  of  a  savings  and  loan 
association  and  is  the  only  woman  member  of  the 
Indianapolis  fire  insurance  inspection  board.  Six  houses 


30  THE    COST   OF    SHELTER. 

are  to  be  erected  at  once  in  various  parts  of  the 
city. " 

No  better  use  of  money  or  effort  can  be  made  at  the 
present  time  than  in  similar  endeavors  to  meet  the  needs 
of  the  time.  The  study  of  conditions  will  prove  an 
education  in  itself  and  a  stimulus  to  invention. 

When  the  social  conscience  is  once  awakened  the 
bride  with  $2000  a  year  will  not  be  expected  to  begin 
where  her  mother  left  off. 

The  young  people  will  be  provided  with  just  as  com- 
fortable and  just  as  sanitary  homes,  but  they  will  not 
be  expected  to  entertain  lavishly  in  order  to  show  the 
wedding  presents  before  they  are  broken.  They  will 
be  visited,  even  if  they  live  in  an  unfashionable  quarter 
on  a  side  street.  Is  it  not  more  honest? 

If  society  would  put  its  stamp  on  the  manner  of  life 
adapted  to  the  welfare  of  the  young  people,  it  would  not 
be  unfashionable  to  live  within  one's  income. 

The  tyranny  of  things  is  very  real  and  most  distressing 
in  connection  with  this  problem  of  shelter  and  all  that 
it  involves. 

There  is  only  needed  a  social  awakening  to  result  in 
an  adjustment  of  men's  views  as  to  what  is  good  and 
right.  New  social  habits  adapted  to  the  age  we  live  in 
will  be  accepted  by  the  next  generation  as  good  form. 


CHAPTER    III. 

LEGACIES   FROM   THE   NINETEENTH  CENTURY 

NOT   ADAPTED    TO    CHANGED    CONDITIONS   CAUSE 

PHYSICAL  DETERIORATION  AND 

DOMESTIC    FRICTION. 

"A  large  part  of  the  evils  of  which  we  complain  socially  to-day 
are  due  to  the  kind  of  houses  we  live  in  and  the  exactions  they  make 
upon  us."— H.  G.  WELLS. 

FOUR  classes  of  houses  have  come  down  to  us: 
(i)  The  family  homestead  in  the  country  set  low  on 
the  ground  with  damp  walls  and  dark  cellar,  one  of  a 
cluster  of  rambling  buildings ;  with  a  well,  the  only  water 
supply,  in  close  proximity  to  various  sources  of  pollution. 
These  houses  are  for  the  most  part  now  abandoned  to  the 
foreigner,  who  uses  them  for  the  primitive  purposes  of 
shelter  without  the  ennobling  intellectual  life  they  once 
harbored.  Now  and  then  a  grandson  rescues  the  old 
place,  brings  water  from  a  spring  or  brook,  digs  a  drain, 
lets  light  into  the  cellar,  and  builds  on  a  kitchen  and 
dining-room. 

The  expense  is  often  greater  than  to  build  anew,  but 
the  effect  is  usually  very  good  when  the  changes  are 
made  under  sanitary  supervision. 

31 


32  THE  COST   OF   SHELTER. 

(2)  The  village  or  suburban  house  set  in  its  own 
grounds,  too  near  the  street  usually,  but  with  garden  and 
fruit-trees  in  the  rear,  and  possibly  a  stable  for  horse  and 
cow.  This  was  the  compromise  made  by  the  generation 
just  from  the  free  life  of  the  farm-house,  who,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  clung  to  the  green  of  grass  and  trees, 
and  the  blue  of  the  sky.  So  long  as  habit  or  love  of  caring 
for  the  things  lasted  all  went  well.  The  father  found  his 
recreation  in  planting  the  garden  before  breakfast,  as 
in  his  boyhood.  The  mother  cared  for  flower  and  vege- 
table-garden, as  she  recalled  her  mother's  life;  she  picked 
her  own  beans  and  corn,  even  if  she  did  not  cook  the 
dinner. 

But  the  children  had  to  hurry  off  to  school,  and  it  was 
a  pity  to  call  them  early:  they  had  lessons  to  learn  in 
the  afternoon.  To  them  the  garden  was  work,  not  play 
as  it  should  have  been ;  so  they  failed  to  gain  that  contact 
with  mother  earth  which  gives  inspiration  as  well  as 
health;  they  failed  to  acquire  a  love  of  nature,  became 
infected  with  the  germ  of  gregariousness,  preferred  the 
glare  of  lights,  the  rush  of  hurrying  crowds,  and  lost 
the  relish  for  fresh  air  and  quiet.  This  second  genera- 
tion came  to  the  city  boarding-house  and  flat  as  soon  as 
they  were  free,  leaving  their  parents'  houses  to  go  the 
same  way  as  the  grandfather's  farmhouse,  into  the  hands 
of  the  foreigner  not  yet  Americanized  to  high  standards 
of  cleanliness  and  orderliness. 


LEGACIES  FROM  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.    33 

These  houses,  too,  are  settling  down  into  unkempt 
grounds  with  dilapidated  porches  and  blinds.  Such  eye- 
sores as  one  finds  on  the  trolley-lines  in  any  direction! 
They  may  have  town-water  supply,  or  they  may  depend 
on  wells,  but  they  are  frequently  without  sewer-connection. 

It  is  costly  to  be  neat  and  clean,  and  only  those  whose 
minds  require  such  surroundings  in  order  to  be  com- 
fortable will  pay  the  cost  in  time,  trouble,  and  money. 

(3)  Some  families  made  a  compromise  and  built 
what  is  called  a  modern  house  with  bath-room  and 
furnace  (after  the  air-tight-stove  craze  passed),  with  jig- 
saw ornamentation  outside  and  in,  pretentious-looking 
dwellings  with  no  proper  kitchen  accompaniments,  and 
an  unsavory  garbage- barrel  in  the  small  back  yard,  under 
the  next  neighbor's  windows.  These  houses  are  so  close 
together  that  sounds  and  smells  mingle;  there  is  so  little 
land  that  there  is  no  satisfaction  in  caring  for  it.  Houses 
of  this  sort  are  altogether  too  frequently  found,  occupying 
good  locations  and  jarring  on  the  nerves  of  the  better- 
trained  young  people  of  to-day.  What  is  to  be  done  with 
them  ?  They  are  too  expensive  to  pull  down,  and  hence 
are  the  last  resort  of  those  who  find  they  must  retrench. 
They  are  mere  temporary  shelters,  not  loved  homes.  T 

The  plumbing  is  usually  of  a  cheap  order,  and  the  drains! 
are   not   infrequently    broken,    so    that    sanitarily    these] 
dwellings  are  often  more  suspicious  than  the  abandoned  \ 
farmhouse. 


34  THE    COST    OF    SHELTER. 

(4)  The  influx  from  village  and  country  made  de- 
mand for  city  housing  of  an  inexpensive  sort,  and  there 
came  into  being  all  over  the  land  the  type  of  the  family 
house  squeezed  by  the  price  of  land  to  four  stories  high, 
1 6  to  20  feet  wide,  built  in  long  rows  and  blocks.  The 
"ugly  sixties"  bred  not  only  distressful  village  "villas," 
but  unpleasant  city  houses  of  this  type,  which  are  to-day 
a  real  menace  to  wholesome  living.  Many  such  blocks 
may  be  found  in  any  of  our  older  cities,  casting  a  de- 
pressing influence  upon  all  who  come  in  sight  of  them, 
and  deteriorating  the  manners  and  morals  of  all  who 
live  in  them.  For  these  have  gone  the  way  of  the  other 
classes  mentioned  and  become  perverted  from  the  uses 
they  were  designed  for.  In  the  seventies  there  were 
still  motherly  women  who  had  come  to  town  to  make  a 
home  for  the  children  no  longer  content  out  of  it.  They 
were  willing  and  capable  of  mothering  a  few  other  children 
and  lonely  teachers  and  clerks,  so  the  ]boarding:houje 
began  as  a^jeal  iamily  home  for. the  homeless-  There 
were  not  enough  of  these  women  to  go  around,  and  soon 
boarding-houses  began  to  be  run  for  profit  only.  Home, 
privileges  were  fewer  and  fewer,  the  common  parlor, 
was  rented,  the  one-family  kitchen  was  made  to  do  duty 
for  twenty  persons.  The  house  became  pervaded  with 
burned  fat  and  tobacco-smoke — a  most  villainous  com- 
bination, gossip  flourished,  and  the  limit  of  discom- 
fort was  reached.  What  wonder  that  a  good  Samaritan 


LEGACIES  FROM  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.    35 

built  the  first  flat  where  the  wearied  nerves  could  find 
peace  in  the  thicker  walls,  and  could  escape  the  eternal 
"fry''  by  geing  out  to  meals!  It  is  a  perfectly  natural 
evolution  from  the  impossible  conditions  which  the 
eighties  and  nineties  developed. 

The  early  attempts,  built  on  the  old  lines  after  the  old 
ideas,  before  the  new  life  was  accepted,  are  not  satis- 
factory and,  being  built  of  brick  or  stone,  they  are  even 
more  difficult  to  get  rid  of  than  the  preceding.  So  each 
type  goes  down  in  the  scale  of  decent  living.  A  given 
roof  is  made  to  cover  more  people  crowding  closer  and 
closer,  causing  home  in  the  sense  of  privacy  and  comfort 
to  recede  farther  and  farther  away,  until  the  lover  of 
his  kind  stands  aghast  at  the  magnitude  of  the  problem 
before  society  when  it  awakens  to  the  task  confronting  it. 
Fortunately  these  rows  of  houses  are  disappearing  under 
the  demand  of  business.  The  invasion  of  the  residential 
district  is  a  real  blessing,  in  that  it  pulls  down  these  houses 
which  in  twenty  years  have  outlived  their  usefulness 
and  can  serve  a  good  purpose  no  longer. 

Let  us  hope  that  either  the  demands  of  business  or 
the  common  sense  of  society  will  also  sweep  away  the 
fifth  class:  (5)  City  flats  put  up  by  the  conscienceless 
money-maker  with  only  that  idea  of  giving  the  public 
what  the  public  wants  (because  it  knows  no  better)  which 
gives  the  newspaper  its  pernicious  influences.  At  first  it 
was  supposed  the  flat-dwellers  would  keep  house,  and 


36  THE   COST    OF    SHELTER. 

arrangements  of  a  sort  were  made.  This  compressed 
the  work  of  the  house  into  such  small  quarters  that  the 
maid  was  given  a  room  down  in  the  basement  along 
with  the  furnace,  or  in  the  top  story  adjoining  ten  or  more 
other  rooms — a  dormitory  arrangement  without  supervision 
and  without  the  quiet  needed  for  rest.  The  difficulty 
of  securing  good  service  under  these  conditions,  together 
with  the  thousand  and  one  annoyances  of  living  at  too 
close  quarters,  noisy  children  and  pianos,  grumpy  janitors, 
smelly  garbage,  have  led  to  the  latest  phase:  non-house- 
keeping flats  with  daily  care  of  a  sort  supplied  by  the  janitor 
if  desired,  a  kitchenette  where  eggs  and  coffee  for  break- 
fast and  dishes  for  invalids  may  be  prepared,  and  restau- 
rants galore  for  other  meals.  Thus  the  women  of  the 
family  are  set  free  to  roam  the  streets  in  search  of  bar- 
gains and  to  join  others  like  unto  themselves  for  matinees 
and  promenades. 

This  sort  of  shelter  is  increasing  more  rapidly  than 
iany  other  in  all  the  cities  investigated.  An  estimate 
has  been  made  that  80  or  90  per  cent  of  the  recent  build- 
ing has  been  of  this  sort.  Six  rooms  in  an  unfashionable 
locality  rent  for  about  $25  or  $30  a  month;  in  a  fashion- 
able quarter,  for  $200  to  $250  per  month,  with  a  floor- 
space  one  half  larger.  These  latter  cost  about  50 
cents  per  week  per  room  for  daily  care,  whereas  the 
former,  if  cared  for  from  outside,  are  served  only  at 
intervals  of  two  weeks  or  a  month.  The  inmates  do 


LEGACIES  FROM  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.    37 

most  of  the  daily  care  themselves.  While  the  building 
is  new  and  fresh  this  means  little  work ;  but  as  time  goes 
on  the  poor  construction  shows,  the  surface  varnish  wears 
off,  cracks  come,  and  a  general  shabbiness  appears,  so  that 
the  tenant  prefers  to  move  into  a  new  building.  The 
owner,  or  more  probably  the  agent,  puts  on  a  little  shining 
varnish,  and  rents  again  without  real  repair,  and  these 
buildings  also  go  from  bad  to  worse.  Many  of  them  are 
known  to  change  tenants  two  or  three  times  a  year. 
There  is  always  a  demand  for  the  newest  house. 

A  study  of  social  conditions  reveals  the  fact  that  f 
the  larger  part  of  the  wage-earners  the  house  has  come 
to  be  the  place  where  money  is  spent,  not  earned  or  even 
saved.  It  has  gone  back  to  its  primitive  use — shelter 
from  weather  and  a  sleeping-place,  a  temporary  one  at 
that.  A  real-estate  authority  has  made  the  assertion 
that  three  fifths  of  the  rent-payers  in  large  cities  are 
made  up  of  non-householders  and  one  half  of  these 
are  confined  to  one  room — mostly  women.  This  indi- 
cates a  change  in  requirements  for  the  housing  of  the 
individual  as  distinguished  from  the  family.  And  it  is 
this  element  which  has  complicated  city  living  to  a 
great  extent,  and  to  which  attention  has  been  drawn  by 
the  accusation  that  home  life  is  shirked  by  it. 

To  the  bachelor  man  and  maid  are  added  the  com- 
mercial traveller  who  leaves  wife  and  possibly  child 
behind  four  fifths  of  the  time.  For  him,  as  for  several 


38  THE    COST    OF    SHELTER. 

other  classes  of  young  business  men,  the  locality  which 
he  can  choose  for  headquarters  changes  with  the  require- 
ments of  business.  He  is  under  orders  and  must  go  at 
a  monent's  notice  across  the  continent,  perhaps.  It  is 
not  his  fault  but  the  exigency  of  business  that  destroys 
the  desire  for  a  permanent  abiding-place.  The  numbers 
of  such  homeless  young  people  are  far  greater  than  any 
one  but  the  real-estate  agent  realizes.  Then  this  loosening 
of  the  home  tie  renders  easy  the  shifting  from  city  to 
country  and  seashore.  A  considerable  proportion  of  the 
$2000  to  $5000  class  shut  up  the  flat  or  leave  the  board- 
ing-house several  times  in  the  year.  There  is  usually 
one  place  where  the  furniture  and  bric-a-brac  and  the 
other  season's  clothing  are  kept,  but  it  is  only  a  store- 
house or  a  temporary  retreat  that  holds  their  property, 
growing  less  and  less  as  they  move,  until  they  may  prac- 
tically live  in  their  trunks. 

The  legacy  which  outranks  all  the  others  in  disastrous 
consequences  is  the  notion  that  the  young  people  must 
begin  where  their  parents  left  off;  that  the  house 
must  be,  if  anything,  a  little  more  elaborate.  There- 
fore in  starting  life  the  rent  is  allowed  to  consume  one 
third  the  income  in  sight,  without  considering  the  cost  of 
maintaining  such  an  establishment.  With  a  probable 
income  of  $2000  a  year  the  young  man  does  not  hesitate 
to  pay  $500  for  a  house,  not  realizing  that  at  least  half  as 
much  more  should  be  spent  on  wages  for  the  care  of  the 


LEGACIES  FROM  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.    39 

nineteenth-century  house,  and  as  much  more  on  inciden- 
tals, car-fares,  and  unexpected  demands.  What  wonder 
that  the  young  people  find  themselves  in  debt  by  the  sec- 
ond year? 

The  parents  are  quite  as  much,  if  not  more,  to  blame 
for  encouraging  this  extravagance.  The  father  and 
mother  are  entitled  to  their  ease  and  to  the  use  of  their 
income  for  it,  but  the  newly  married  pair  have,  in  this 
age,  no  right  to  assume  the  same  attitude.  They  have 
their  way  to  make,  their  work  to  do  in  the  years  ahead 
of  them.  They  should  not  mortgage  the  future  for  the 
sake  of  the  present  luxury;  and  because  of  the  uncertain- 
ties of  occupation  and  of  health  it  is  wise  to  take  out  of 
the  expected  income  one  fourth  or  one  third  for  a  reserve 
fund  and  divide  the  remainder  for  expenses.  For  instance, 
from  $2000  a  year  subtract  $500,  then  divide  the  $1500 
into  $300  for  rent,  $300  for  food,  $300  for  operating 
expenses,  $200  for  clothing,  $200  for  travel,  leaving  $200 
for  the  other  expenses.  If  unlooked-for  expenses  must 
be  incurred,  there  is  the  $500  to  draw  upon;  but  do  not 
court  the  extra  outlay:  save  the  nest-egg  if  possible. 

The  ideals  of  the  home  are  said  to  rule  the  world. 
The  young  business  man  who  does  not  take  the  sanej 
view  of  his  own  expenses  will  not  rightly  consider  hisl 
employer's  interests.  It  is  more  than  probable  that  the 
much-deplored  laxness,  to  call  it  by  no  harsher  name,  in 
business  circles  is  directly  traceable  to  this  falseness 


40  THE    COST    OF   SHELTER. 

and  dishonesty  in  standards  of  home  life.  This  moral 
effect  is  what  makes  the  housing  problem  so  serious. 
It  leads  to  an  outward  show  not  balanced  by  an  ability 
to  maintain  an  inner  life  in  harmony.  It  leads  to  an 
attempt  to  carry  on  a  four-servant  house  with  two  serv- 
ants, or  a  three  servant  establishment  with  one. 

Lack  of  study  and  experience  leads  the  family  living 
in  the  suburbs,  in  one  of  the  worst  legacies  of  the  past, 
to  attempt  the  same  style  as  friends  maintain  in  a  lately 
built  apartment  house,  without  in  the  least  understanding 
wherein  the  difference  lies. 

From  the  Atlantic  to  the  Pacific,  from  Maine  to  Texas, 
comes  the  same  dull  and  sullen  roar  of  domestic  unrest. 
Lack  of  faithful  service  is  causing  the  abandonment  of 
the  family  home,  and  the  fear  of  the  obstacles  in  the 
way  of  establishing  new  ones  threatens  the  whole  social 
fabric. 

The  housewife  is  inclined  to  connect  this  state  of  thingc 
almost  entirely  with  food  preparation,  and  is  prone  to 
fancy  that  if  eating  could  be  abolished  peace  would 
return. 

The  trouble  goes  much  deeper,  however,  even  to  the 
foundations.  The  nineteenth-century  house  is  not 
suited  to  twentieth-century  needs.  In  other  words, 
lack  of  adaptation  to  present  conditions  of  the  houses 
We  live  in  is  a  large  factor  in  the  prevailing  domestic 
discontent.  The  next  largest  has  been  referred  to  as 


LEGACIES  FROM  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.    4! 

attempting  a  style  of  living  beyond  one's  income.! 
In  all  other  walks  of  life,  in  transportation,  in  manufac- 
turing, machinery  has  come  in  to  replace  the  heavier 
and  more  mechanical  portions  of  labor.  The  steam- 
shovel,  the  hoisting-engine,  an  infinite  combination  of 
mechanical  principles  have  been  applied  to  the  doing 
of  things  to  save  human  muscle.  To  stand  by  the 
machine  which  turns  out  the  familiar  grape-basket, 
ready  to  fill  with  the  fruit,  and  then  to  watch  the  house- 
maid bending  over  some  piece  of  work,  is  to  realize  the 
difference.  In  few,  very  few  operations  is  it  necessary 
to-day  that  men  should  bend  their  backs,  but  in  how 
many  household  processes  is  the  worker  expected  to  get 
down  on  all  fours?  The  free-born  American  rebels. 
Perchance  it  is  the  unconscious  protest  over  a  four- 
footed  ancestry,  or  it  may  be  that  disuse  has  really  weak- 
ened the  spinal  column.  Whatever  the  cause,  the  fact 
remains.  It  is  not  the  idea  of  work,  of  service,  but  of 
bending  the  back  to  work  that  is  so  repugnant;  likewise 
the  effect  on  the  hands  of  hot  water  and  scrubbing. 
Close  observation  has  convinced  me  that  care  of  the  hands 
has  become  an  indication  of  freedom  from  manual  labor 
quite  unthought  of  fifteen  or  twenty  years  ago.  The 
increase  of  manicuring-rooms,  like  the  increase  of  res- 
taurants, is  a  clear  sign  of  the  trend  of  the  times.  Not 
only  the  class  who  likes  to  waste  conspicuously,  but  many 
a  teacher,  many  a  young  man  in  State  or  Government 


42  THE    COST    OF    SHELTER. 

employ  with  an  income  of  one,  two,  or  three  thousand 
a  year  patronizes  these  rooms. 

jf  This  daintiness  reflects  downward,  and  the  girl  whose 
acquaintances  in  her  high-school  days  are  in  a  position  to 
keep  well  manicured,  if  not  "lily-white,"  hands  does  not 
like  to  have  hers  show  the  effect  of  housework,  when  that 
means  scrubbing  the  floor  and  cleaning  the  stove.  Gloves  ? 
Ah,  well,  James  Nasmyth  once  wrote:  "Kid-gloves  are 
great  non-conductors  of  knowledge. "  I  believe  that  gloves 
of  any  kind  are  a  makeshift  in  real  cleaning  of  dirty 
corners;  but  there  should,  not  be  corners  to  catch  dirt. 

The  unnecessary  nastiness  of  the  scrub-water  with  its 
fine  soot  which  works  into  every  pore  is  a  great  objection 
to  the  girl  who  must  work  for  her  living.  If  she  goes  to 
visit  her  friends,  her  hands  betray  her.  She  can  remove 
the  other  badges  of  her  toil,  her  cap  and  apron ;  she  may 
go  out  on  the  street  as  brave  as  her  mistress;  but  the 
moment  her  gloves  are  removed  her  hands  tell  the  tale. 
With  the  means  at  hand  this  need  not  be.  It  is  one  of 
fthe  legacies  which  have  come  down  to  us,  and  which  we 
ihave  connected  with  the  servant  problem.  The  work 
in  the  most  modern  apartments  does  not  require  the  soiling 
of  the  hands  in  a  serious  way.  With  hard  wood  floors, 
bright  gas-stoves,  porcelain  lined  dishes,  no  pots  and 
kettles,  all  the  stairs,  halls,  etc.,  cared  for  by  the  janitor, 
the  work  is  of  a  far  less  smutting  kind  than  in  the 
suburban  house,  where  there  is  still  need  for  much 


LEGACIES  FROM  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.    43 

cleaning  up  of  a  roughening  sort  which  cannot  be 
escaped.  This  has  more  to  do  than  we  are  apt  to 
think  with  the  distaste  for  the  country,  unless  several 
servants  are  kept,  some  for  this  work  only.  In  the 
old  type  of  city  house  the  travel  up-  and  down-stairs  to 
answer  bell  and  telephone  has  demanded  strength  of  back 
not  possessed  by  the  modern  maid.  The  house  is  not  yet 
adapted  to  the  new  demands  of  the  workers,  and  they 
shun  it.  The  mistress  herself  finds  it  beyond  her  strength, 
even  if  the  traces  of  rough  work  were  not  quite  so  dis- 
tasteful to  her. 

Miss  Pettengill  in  her  story  of  domestic  service  brings 
out  the  great  part  played  by  sooty  dust,  sifting  in  even 
through  closed  windows,  in  the  burden  of  the  waitress 
who  is  expected  to  keep  the  dining-room  immacu- 
late. 

This  is  only  one  instance  where  the  blame  really 
belongs  on  the  actual  material  house  rather  than  on  the 
mistress,  except  that  she  does  not  discover  a  remedy, 
does  not  even  know  where  to  look  for  the  cause.  I 
have  great  faith  in  the  business  woman,  who  does  see 
much  that  is  better  done  and  who  will  bring  it  back  into 
the  home. 

Fashions  in  philanthropy  do  not  yet  tend  in  the  direc- 
tion of  house  betterment. 

"A  busy  man  cannot  stop  his  life-work  to  teach  archi- 
tects what  they  ought  to  know,"  says  Wells;  but  on  the 


44  THE   COST   OF    SHELTER. 

other  hand  "we  cannot  be  expected  to  teach  men  and 
their  wives,  as  well  as  draw  plans  for  them,"  says  the 
architect  who  has  tried  it. 

The  centrifugal  forces  that  our  social  prophets  are  so 
fond  of  invoking,  holding  that  the  words  "town''  and 
"city"  may  become  as  obsolete  as  "mail-coach,"  will 
have  to  reckon  with  these  features  of  country  life. 

It  is  assumed  that  the  work  of  women  is  "  housekeeping." 
I  should  like  to  put  the  question  suddenly  to  a  thousand 
,  men.  What  is  twentieth-century  housekeeping  ?  I  venture 
the  guess  that  less  than  a  hundred  would  take  into  account 
the  utter  difference  in  their  wives'  duties  from  their 
mothers',  as  they  remember  them;  and  yet  the  house,  even 
the  flat,  is  built  more  or  less  along  the  old  lines.  The 
1  women  do  not  know  enough  to  assert  themselves,  and  have 
not  the  skill  to  show  the  builder  what  is  wrong.  The 
architects  could  tell  tales  if  they  would.  The  utter  ig- 
norance of  what  a  house  means,  of  the  steps  necessary  to 
make  a  successful  livable  place,  is  appalling.  The  young 
man  who  has  $3000  as  a  legacy  feels  he  can  build.  His 
wife  chooses  the  location  near  her  friends  whose  houses 
she  likes,  and  the  architect  is  called  in.  Do  you  wish 
back  stairs  ?  Are  you  to  keep  three  servants  or  none  ? 
Do  you  wish  the  rooms  separate  or  connecting  ?  All  such 
questions  find  a  blank  stare.  "  What  difference  does  that 
make  in  the  style  and  price?"  the  would-be  owner  says. 
The  architect  is  not  always  able  to  show  him  that  these 


LEGACIES  PROM  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.    45 

little  things  are  the  whole  problem  in  building  a  home. 
The  house  as  a  home  is  merely  outer  clothing,  which 
should  fit  as  an  overcoat  should,  without  wrinkles  and 
creases  that  show  their  ready-made  character.  The 
woman,  born  housekeeper  as  she  considers  herself,  is  rigid 
in  her  ideas  of  what  she  thinks  she  wants,  but  when  the 
builder  has  followed  her  plans  she  is  far  from  satisfied 
with  the  result.  She  is  used  to  material  which  puckers 
and  stretches  in  her  clothing;  she  cannot  understand 
the  inflexibility  of  wood  and  stone.  The  remedy  is 
for  high-school  girls,  probably  even  grammar-school 
pupils  as  well,  to  have  along  with  their  drawing  some 
problems  in  house-planning  and  some  lessons  in  car- 
pentry. 

It  will  be  seen  from  the  foregoing  glance  at  the  rapid 
change  and  steady  deterioration  of  houses  that  the  care 
of  such  living-places  must  involve  special  discomforts  in 
most  cases. 

The  time  required  to  keep  clean  old  splintered  floors, 
to  carry  pails  of  water  up  and  down  stairs,  to  dry  out 
the  cloths — the  base  boards  with  their  grimy  streaks 
tell  the  story  of  carelessness — is  not  counted  in  the 
wage  schedule. 

Why  is  there  so  much  dirt  brought  into  the  house? 
Because  shoes  and  streets  are  muddy.  Why  is  there  so 
much  lint?  Because  we  have  too  many  things  in  a  room 
— too  much  wear  and  tear. 


46  THE   COST   OF    SHELTER. 

And  unnecessary  dirt  is  found  even  in  the  newer  apart- 
ment-houses with  the  ever-changing  population  and  ever- 
lessening  space  for  maids'  quarters,  together  with  the 
sham  character  of  construction  due  to  the  fact  that  most 
of  these  houses  have  been  put  up  by  speculators  at  the 
lowest  cost  of  the  cheapest  materials  which  will  show  wear 
n  a  few  months.  Flimsy  construction  is  a  direct  result 
of  the  notorious  lack  of  care  taken  by  the  tenant,  so  that 
quick  returns  must  be  the  rule;  also  of  the  probability 
:hat  the  neighborhood  will  deteriorate  and  that  a  class 
which  will  bear  crowding  and  be  less  critical  will  replace 
the  first  tenants. 

Conveniences  for  doing  work  in.  the  houses  built  to 
rent,  that  is  to  bring  in  the  greatest  returns  in  the  shortest 
time,  will  not  be  put  in  (for  the  first  cost  is  great) 
unless  the  house  will  rent  for  more.  The  sharpest  Hebrew 
or  Irish  landlord  will  allow  his  architect  to  add  bath- 
tubs if  he  believes  the  flat  will  rent  for  a  few  dollars 
more,  where  he  will  not  do  it  for  the  sake  of  cleanliness. 
The  supply  of  hot  water,  together  with  the  gas-stove, 
has  done  much  to  reconcile  the  housewife  who  does  her 
own  work  to  the  cramped  quarters  of  the  flat,  and  also 
has  done  more  than  anything  else  to  render  the  maids 
discontented  with  that  legacy  from  the  nineteenth  century 
which  '  requires  the  building  of  a  coal  fire  before  hot 
water  can  be  had.  The  coal  fire  makes  necessary  rising 
an  hour  earlier  and  this,  after  the  late  hours  the  seven- 


LEGACIES  FROM  THE  NINETEENTH  CENTURY.    47 

o'clock  dinner  enforces,  causes  friction  all  along  the  line. 

The  acceptance  by  young  women  without  a  study  of 
cause  and  effect  of  whatever  presents  itself  makes  them 
bad  housekeepers,  in  the  sense  of  ignorant  ones  unable 
to  cope  with  present  conditions,  because  lack  of  experi- 
ence is  not  supplemented  by  a  spirit  of  investigation 
and  a  resolution  to  work  out  the  problem.  They  seem 
to  think  that  housekeeping  is  to  go  on  in  the  same  old 
way  no  matter  whatever  else  may  change,  whereas  it 
is  most  sensitive  to  the  general  direction  of  progress 
if  they  but  knew  it.  The  wage-earner  is  more  fully 
aware  of  the  currents  of  the  irresistible  river  modern 
life  has  become  (the  slow-moving  car  of  Juggernaut  is 
no  longer  an  adequate  symbol)  than  is  the  money  spender. 

Indeed  is  any  part  of  the  house,  as  we  now  most 
frequently  find  it,  adapted  to  the  uses  of  the  twentieth 
century  ? 

The  careless  capitalist  who  makes  possible  the  "  cock- 
roach landlord,"  he  who  sublets  and  crowds  and  skimps 
the  tenants  for  his  own  gain,  is  greatly  to  blame  for  the 
distressing  conditions  of  the  lower  income  limit  of  the 
wage- earner,  but  I  fear  he  is  not  altogether  blameless 
for  the  sort  of  house  the  $1500  man  has  to  look  for  in 
the  city.  Decent  living  with  light  and  air  within  half 
an  hour  of  work  is  growing  so  rare  that  society  must  take 
a  hand  in  the  matter. 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE  PLACE  OF  THE  HOUSE  IN  THE  SOCIAL  ECONOMY 
OF  THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY. 

"We  have  entered  upon  the  period  of  conscious  evolution,  have 
begun  the  adaptation  of  the  environment  to  the  organism." — Sir 
OLIVER  LODGE. 

THE  hopeless  pessimism  of  the  past,  that  saw  in  the 
unmerciful  progress  of  organic  evolution  no  escape  for 
the  human  animal  from  the  grip  of  fate,  is  about  to  give 
way  to  the  enthusiasm  of  conscious  directing  and  con- 
trolling power. 

This  is  the  beneficent  result  of  the  age  of  the  machine. 
Man  has  discovered  that  he  can  not  only  change  his 
environment,  but  that  by  this  change  he  can  modify 
himself.  The  hope  of  the  future  lies  in  the  moulding  of 
man's  surroundings  to  his  needs.  In  physiological  terms, 
"  the  adaptation  of  structure  to  function." 

The  day  is  long  past  when  shelter  implied  chiefly  a 
tight  roof  and  a  dry  floor.  The  housing  of  the  twentieth- 
century  family  means  location,  central  and  fashionable. 
It  means  in  cost  far  more  than  what  the  roof  covers  and 
the  floor  supports.  It  means  plumbing  and  interior 


SOCIAL  ECONOMY  OF  THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY.      49 

finish;  it  also  means  a  finish  on  the  outside,  smoothly/ 
shaven  lawns  and  immaculate  sidewalks. 

Sigh  as  we  may  for  the  colonial  house,  we  confess 
that  the  standards  of  the  time  did  not  include  the  com- 
fort of  hot  baths,  polished  floors,  plate-glass  windows, 
elevators,  ice-closets,  and  lawn-mowers.  These  are  neces- 
sary adjuncts  to  what  is  held  as  merely  decent  living; 
how  can  the  $2000  man  have  them,  not  why  will  he 
not? 

What  then  is  the  house  and  the  life  in  it  to  become 
for  the  great  majority  of  families  and  individuals  with 
an  income  of  $3000  a  year  and  necessarily  nomadic 
habits.  I  say  necessarily,  because  these  families  are  at 
the  mercy  of  business  and  social  conditions  quite  beyond 
their  control  and  impossible  to  foretell. 

So  far  as  prophetic  vision  sees  through  the  mists  of 
time,  the  aim  of  the  twentieth  century  is  to  live  the  effective 
lile. 

The  simple  life  has  been  preached,  the  strenuous  life 
has  been  lauded,  but,  as  William  Barclay  Parsons  re- 
cently stated  it:*  "We  need  force,  we  need  a  vigorous 
force;  we  need  that  direction  and  avoidance  of  the  un- 
necessary which  is  simplicity,  but  with  either  one  alone 
there  is  something  lacking.  Instead  of  latent  force  and 
great  energy  without  control,  instead  of  quiet  gentleness, 

*  William  Barclay  Parsons,  N.E.A.,  Asbury  Park,  1905.  Eng. 
Record,  Aug.  12,  1905. 


50  THE    COST   OF    SHELTER. 

of  power  of  control  without  vigor  to  be  controlled,  what 
we  need  is  force  and  energy  applied  where  necessary 
and  always  under  control,  always  working  to  a  definite 
purpose,  and  at  the  same  time  avoiding  complications 
and  unnecessary  friction. 

"  That  is  to  have  a  life  whose  great  underlying  motive 
is  effectiveness.  Instead  of  speaking  of  the  strenuous 
life  or  the  simple  life,  let  us  have  as  a  doctrine  'the 
effective  life.' 

"  What  we  need  is  not  merely  a  man  who  acts,  but  one 
who  does;  that  is,  one  who  will  do  what  he  has  to  do 
regardless  of  intervening  obstacles.  Efficiency  and 
effectiveness  are  the  key-notes  of  success  in  actual  life. 
They  are  also  the  lessons  taught  by  every  parable  in  the 
New  Testament,  even  if  that  work  is  regarded  as  a  code 
of  ethics,  and  they  form  the  spirit  of  that  stirring  defini- 
tion of  engineering  *  which  is  based  on  the  direction  of 
the  vital  forces  of  nature  and  the  doing  of  things  for 
mankind." 

Manufacturing  concerns  have  found  it  pays  them  to 
provide  decent  tenements  for  their  workers,  but  society 
,has  not  yet  awakened  to  the  fact  that  the  rank  and  file 
of  the  great  army  of  salaried  employees  is  left  to  fend 
for  itself  in  a  world  only  too  prone  to  take  advantage 
of  its  necessities.  There  is  danger  in  this  neglect  of 

*  "Ability  to  do  and  the  doing,  efficiency,  and  the  use  of  it  all 
for  mankind." — Tredgold's  definition  of  Engineering. 


SOCIAL  ECONOMY  OF  THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY.      51 

wholesome  living  surroundings,  because  from  this  stratum 
develops  normally  the  intelligence  of  the  future,  and  how 
can  mentally  active  children  grow  up  under  the  prevail- 
ing unsightly  and  unsanitary  conditions? 

Of  course  with  the  passing  of  pioneer  conditions  will 
pass  in  a  measure  the  courage  and  adaptability  which 
braced  itself  to  meet  and  overcome  obstacles.  The 
salaried  position  in  a  great  combine,  instead  of  work 
for  one's  self  in  an  independent  business,  tends  to  magnify 
the  value  of  mere  money-income  gained  through  smart- 
ness rather  than  by  ability.  If  life  is  made  too  easy, 
men  will  settle  into  indolent  sterility,  just  as  animals  and 
plants  degenerate  with  too  much  food. 
xj?he  future  will  surely  bring  greater  mechanical  per- 
fection and  thus  leave  it  possible  for  the  individual,  for 
each  member  of  the  family  group,  to  do  for  himself  many 
little  things  which  are  not  comfortable  to  do  now.  But 
will  he  be  willing  to  do  them?  Not  unless  he  feels  it 
to  be  a  duty  or  a  pleasure.  Not  unless  there  is  an  under- 
current of  principle  which  carries  him  along.  Without 
this  principle  strong  enough  to  give  an  impetus  over 
hard  places  in  the  early  stages  of  life,  the  individual 
and  the  family  will  surely  drift  into  the  hotel  and  board- 
ing-house, where  everything  is  done  on  a  money  basis 
and  nothing  for  love  of  one's  kind;  where  a  tip  salves 
the  hurt  of  menial  work.  These  habits  once  gained 
are  hard  to  break  up;  therefore  it  is  much  better  for 


52  THE    COST    OF    SHELTER. 

young  people  to  begin  life  doing  some  things  for  them- 
selves in  a  house  where  machinery  responds  to  their 
call  without  a  tip,  where  they  may  economize  without 
loss  of  self-respect.  We  need  to  revive  some  of  the 
pagan  ideals  of  the  beauty  and  value  of  the  human 
body  and  human  life  which  consists  in  the  care  and 
use  of  this  body.  There  is  no  menial  work  in  the  daily 
living  rightly  carried  out;  that  which  the  last  century 
wrongly  permitted  is  made  needless  by  the  machinery 
of  to-day. 

The  point  of  view  is  most  important. 

The  first  steps  toward  social  betterment  will  come 
through  a  cooperation  of  three  forces:  (i)  a  recognition 
of  the  need;  (2)  an  awakening  of  social  conscience  to  the 
duty  of  supplying  the  need;  and  (3)  the  movement  of 
moneyed  philanthropy  to  fulfil  the  requirement  quickly. 

As  was  natural,  sympathy  flowed  first  to  the  class 
which  had  the  most  visible  need,  not  necessarily  the 
greater  need. 

The  New  York  Model  Tenement  Association  has 
shown  the  world  how  easy  it  is,  when  there  is  a  will, 
to  find  a  way.  That  association  has  already  taken  the 
first  step  in  advanced  housing,  and  reduced  the  cost  of 
safe  and  rentable  city  shelter  to  its  lowest  terms.  Fire- 
proof, sanitary,  and  convenient  so  far  as  rooms  go  (it 
is  quite  a  climb  for  the  mother  with  a  baby  in  her  arms 
to  the  sixth  story) ,  with  neighbors  carefully  sorted,  repairs 


SOCIAL  ECONOMY  OF  THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY.       53 

well  looked  after,  a  sympathetic  woman  as  agent  always 
in  the  office;  but  only  a  minimum  of  light  and  air  and 
sun;  bedrooms  7X8,  living-rooms  10X13;  the  smallest 
spaces  the  law  allows;  no  grass,  no  flowers  outside,  no 
petsr  nothing  of  one's  own  that  cannot  be  put  in  a 
cart;  common  stairways  where  only  partial  privacy  is 
gained;  clothes-yards  on  the  roof,  and  laundry  in 
the  basement,  to  be  used  in  turn  by  twenty  tenants. 
Because  this  is  better  than  the  slums  for  the  emerging 
class,  and  because  they  like  the  gregariousness,  is  no 
argument  for  continuing  the  type  up  into  the  range  of 
the  $2000  group.  But  this  is  just  what  most  of  the 
small  apartments  do — those  built  to  make  all  the  money 
that  they  will  bear.  Hardly  any  better  facilities  are  given. 
It  will  be  easy  for  more  roomy  living-places  to  be  built  on 
similar  plans,  with  elevators  and  labor-saving  devices, 
and  yet  within  the  limit  of  moderate  incomes,  such 
blocks  to  be  always  under  competent  sanitary  super- 
vision. 

From  these  model  tenements  it  will  not  be  difficult  to 
advance  to  the  suburban  square  with  sufficient  variety  in 
house  plans  to  content  those  who  are  willing  to  yield 
small  personal  whims.  Hitherto  the  erratic  fancy  of 
would-be  tenants,  the  dissatisfaction  with  the  arrange- 
ments provided,  has  made  building  en  masse  difficult.  As 
long  as  the  builder  was  called  upon  to  suit  those  who  had 
lived  in  houses  of  their  own  for  many  years  his  task  was 


54  THE    COST    OF    SHELTER. 

difficult,  but  now  he  will  have  to  do  with  the  young 
people  who  know  no  other  life  and  who  will  more  readily 
fall  in  with  the  standards  set  by  the  house  itself. 

For  this  very  reason  those  who  have  social  welfare  at 
heart  must  come  to  the  rescue,  and  devise  and  put  up 
samples,  of  the  best  that  modern  science  can  offer,  to  rent 
for  $300  to  $500  a  year.  Let  any  one  who  loves  his 
kind,  if  he  have  a  talent  this  way,  not  wrap  it  in  a  napkin, 
but  give  it  to  the  builder  and  the  philanthropist  to 
materialize.  Now  is  the  time  to  set  standards  for  the 
next  thirty  years.  The  electric  car  is  opening  new 
country  as  never  before.  Who  will  make  the  practical 
advance  ? 

These  new  houses  will  be  roomy  and  yet,  I  think,  will 
not  fail  of  sun-parlors  or  enclosed  piazzas  which  will  serve 
as  extensions  of  the  house  when  occasion  demands.  I 
am  sure  they  will  not  contain  the  forbidding  "front 
room"  set  apart  for  weddings  and  funerals  and  rare 
family  gatherings.  More  open-air  life  will  be  fashion- 
able and  practicable  as  soon  as  we  have  learned  that  a 
wind-break  and  not  a  tightly- enclosed  space  is  what  we 
need.  In  northern  latitudes  especially  it  is  the  wind 
which  makes  the  climate  seem  so  inclement.  The 
amount  of  accessible  sunshine  may  be  doubled  with  great 
advantage  in  most  of  the  semi-country-houses.  Shelter 
should  not  suggest  a  prison. 

The   education   of   the   child   demands   that   housing 


SOCIAL  ECONOMY  OF  THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY.       55 

shall  include  land  for  pets,  for  vegetables  and  flowers; 
not  merely  to  increase  beauty  and  selfish  pleasure,  but  for 
the  ethical  value  of  contact  with  things  dependent  on  care 
and  forethought.  The  thoughtful  sociologist  recognizes 
as  one  of  the  greatest  needs  for  the  children  of  to-day 
a  closer  companionship  with  fathers — is  urging  that 
even  money-making  should  be  secondary  to  the  time 
given  to  moulding  the  character  of  the  little  ones,  instead 
of  leaving  them  to  nurses  and  coachmen  or  to  the  school 
of  the  streets.  Companionship  in  the  garden-work  will 
secure  this  opportunity  in  a  natural  way. 

It  is  only  by  going  into  the  country  that  sufficient 
land  for  a  simple  house  with  yard  in  front  and  garden 
in  the  rear — the  ideal  English  home — can  be  had. 
There  will  be  a  sacrifice  of  some  of  the  things  the  city 
gives,  but  a  compromise  is  the  only  possible  outcome  of 
many  claims. 

Those  who  are  feeling  the  return  to  Nature,  who  find 
pleasure  in  gardening  and  in  all  the  soothing  effects  of 
country  life,  or  who  can  bring  themselves  to  it  with 
moderate  pleasure  for  the  sake  of  the  children  who 
must  be  encouraged  to  delight  in  it,  should  go  out 
at  least  ten  miles  from  the  city.  In  a  well-regulated 
household  the  early  breakfast  will  be  a  natural  thing, 
)and  the  meal  will  be  no  more  hurried  than  any  other, 
jit  is  the  class  which  tries  to  be  both  city  and  country 
that  fills  the  columns  of  the  magazines  with  the  trials  of 


56  THE   COST   OF    SHELTER. 

the  commuter.  The  father  need  not  see  less  of  his 
children,  and  the  common  occupation  and  interest  will 
furnish  opportunities  for  wise  counsel.  Much  nonsense 
is  written  about  the  perils  of  habit  and  the  dangers  of 
routine.  It  all  depends  upon  what  those  habits  are. 
All  animal  functions  are  better  performed  as  a  matter 
of  habit,  without  thought;  it  saves  energy  for  more  intel- 
lectual pursuits,  which,  I  grant,  are  better  kept  under 
volitional  control.  The  animal  act  of  breakfasting  at  a 
given  hour,  of  taking  a  given  train,  can  be  accomplished 
as  unconsciously  as  breathing.  Early  rising  should  be 
the  rule,  because  the  children  are  then  available  as  they 
are  not  at  night. 

We  shall  assume  that  the  sane  man  will  hold  the  little 
home  in  the  country  with  all  outdoors  to  breathe  in  as 
worth  the  half-hour  journey  and  the  early  breakfast, 
and  that  the  woman  will  have  time  set  free  by  the  labor- 
saving  devices  sure  to  come  as  fast  as  she  will  use  them 
wisely.  This  free  time  she  will  give  to  the  aesthetic  side 
of  life  and  will  make  of  her  home  a  more  attractive 
place  than  the  club. 

But  once  a  week  let  them  both  go  into  town  either  to 
the  club  or  to  some  other  place  for  dinner  and  an  enter- 
tainment afterward.  This  will  be  sufficient  to  keep  them 
out  of  an  intellectual  rut,  will  brighten  the  appetite  with 
needed  variety,  and  make  the  next  quiet  evening  more 
delightful. 


SOCIAL  ECONOMY  OF  THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY.      57 

Once  a  week  is  sufficient  to  break  the  monotony  of 
diet  and  routine,  and  not  often  enough  to  create  that 
insatiable  appetite  for  the  glare  of  lights  and  the  rush 
of  people  which  makes  all  family  life  "  deadly  dull/'  as 
one  cafe-haunting  woman  confessed. 

While  this  country  life  is  the  only  thing  for  a  family 
of  young  children  and  for  those  who  really  enjoy  the 
country,  there  is  a  larger  number  needing  rational  housing 
which  will  be  left  behind,  let  us  hope  with  more  room 
because  of  the  flitting  of  these  others. 

Much  as  I  deprecate  the  evils  of  the  present  apartment 
system,  I  do  believe  that  an  idealized  modification  will 
be  needed  for  many  years,  especially  for'  the  elderly,  for 
the  commercial  traveler,  for  the  bachelor  men  and  maids 
temporarily  or  permanently  living  single,  for  the  newly 
married  as  yet  unsettled  in  business  or  profession,  for 
the  man  who  does  not  know  his  own  mind  or  whose 
employers  do  not  know  theirs.  An  instance  has  come 
to  the  writer's  knowledge  of  a  young  man  who,  after 
his  wedding  cards  were  out,  was  ordered  to  take  charge 
of  an  office  in  another  city. 

Marrying  for  shelter  is  and  should  be  no  longer  neces-j 
sary ;  and  as  for  the  fear  that  this  habit  of  bachelor  quarters 
will  be  hard  to  break  up  and  tend  to  delay  marriage, 
it  will  all  depend  upon  whether  it  comes  from  the  merelv 
animal  layer  of  the  brain  or  from  the  intellectual. 

This  housing  of  the  individual  instead  of  the  family 


58  THE   COST    OF    SHELTER. 

has  introduced  an  entirely  new  problem  into  house- 
building. 

Formerly  when  a  widow  or  widower,  a  maiden  aunt, 
a  homeless  uncle  or  cousin  made  his  home  with  relatives, 
it  was  "as  one  of  the  family";  only  the  minister  was 
recognized  as  having  need  for  a  separate  sitting-room. 
The  trials  of  this  forced  companionship  have  been  told 
in  many  a  witty  story,  and  pathetic  instances  that  never 
came  to  print  are  matters  of  common  knowledge. 

Will  any  one  dare  question  the  fact  that  the  sum  of 
human  happiness  has  been  increased  by  the  freedom 
given  to  these  prisoned  souls  by  the  small  independent 
apartment  ? 

I  have  been  reminded  that  here  is  no  provision  for 
the  different  generations  to  live  together  under  the  same 
roof;  that  the  nineteenth  century  held  it  to  be  of 
great  social  value  to  have  the  children  grow  up  with 
the  elders.  I  am  sorry  for  the  twentieth-century  grand- 
parents if  they  are  obliged  to  live  in  a  flat  with  the 
twentieth-century  child;  some  readjustment  of  manners 
and  ideals  must  be  made  before  such  living  will  be 
comfortable,  and  it  seems  as  if  they  are  better  apart 
until  the  new  order  is  accepted  or  modified.  The  com- 
fort of  those  whose  work  is  done  and  who  have  leisure  to 
enjoy  life  was  never  so  easily  secured  as  to-day.  To 
turn  the  key  and  take  the  train  at  an  hour's  notice, 
leaving  no  cares  to  follow,  tends  to  a  serene  old  age. 


SOCIAL  ECONOMY  OF  THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY.       59 

Moralists  may  squabble  over  the  discipline  of  living 
with  one's  mother-in-law,  and  of  the  loss  to  the  children 
of  grandmother's  petting,  but  at  least  physical  content 
and  mental  satisfaction  have  increased.  Has  selfish- 
ness also  ?  Who  shall  say  ?  And  anyway  it  is  a  part  of 
the  progress  of  the  age,  and  what  are  we  to  do  about  it  ? 

For  one  group  of  single  persons  the  change  has  been 
only  beneficial.  It  was  a  strict  code  of  the  early  nineteenth 
century  that  a  single  woman  should  find  shelter  under 
the  roof  of  some  family  house,  however  independent, 
financially,  her  condition.  Latch-key  privileges  were 
denied  her.  Result,  the  boarding-house  of  the  later 
half  of  the  century,  nominally  a  family  home,  actually 
a  hotbed  of  faultfinding  and  gossip,  most  wearing  to 
the  teacher  and  fledgling  professional  woman,  however 
acceptable  to  the  milliner  and  seamstress.  Privacy 
could  not  be  maintained  in  a  house  built  for  a  family  of 
five  made  to  do  duty  for  twelve,  with  one  bath-room,  thin- 
walled  bedrooms  with  connecting  doors  through  which 
the  light  streamed  when  one  wished  to  sleep,  and  words 
frequently  came  not  intended  for  outsiders.  Who  that 
has  experienced  the  two  could  ever  think  the  bachelor 
apartment  with  its  neat  bath-room  and  double-doored 
entrance  an  objectionable  feature  in  modern  intellectual 
life?  Ah!  here  is  the  key.  We  are  to-day  living  a  life 
of  the  intellect  far  more  than  ever  before,  and  for  that 
a  certain  amount  of  withdrawal  from  our  fellow  man  is 


60  THE  COST  OF  SHELTER. 

needed,  at  least  a  withdrawal  from  that  portion  which 
finds  its  interest  in  the  affairs  of  others. 

But  if  we  eliminate  the  house  itself,  and  the  heavy 
furniture  from  the  "home"  possessions,  what  have  we 
left?  The  little  girl  was  right:  "My  home  is  where 
my  dishes  is."  My  possessions,  whatever  they  are — the 
things  I  can  call  my  own  under  all  circumstances  make 
my  home.  These  circumstances  change  from  time  to 
time,  but  the  ideal  is  there.  As  a  concrete  instance:  let 
us  have  books,  not  a  lot  of  books,  but  books  that  are 
friends  with  whom  one  may  spend  a  comforting  hour 
anywhere;  books  that  have  power  to  charm  away  the 
gloom  of  discontent,  books  to  lend  gayety  to  festal  days. 

Rugs  and  draperies  a  few,  those  you  find  satisfying 
to  your  sense  of  color,  of  design,  and  with  which  you 
feel  at  home.  Ugly  tables,  chairs,  and  "sofas"  disappear 
under  an  Indian  shawl.  A  Persian  or  a  Navajo  blanket 
covers  a  multitude  of  aesthetic  sins.  Only  let  these 
harmonize  with  each  other,  let  them  be  chosen  once  for 
all  to  go  in  company;  then  if  they  are  distributed,  it  will 
not  matter;  but  in  any  case  avoid  the  "museum"  look 
given  by  mere  collecting.  Alas!  these  are  expensive 
articles,  and  the  young  people  may  not  be  able  to  get  all 
at  once.  Let  society  then  turn  over  a  new  leaf  in  the 
wedding-present  line,  and  cease  this  senseless  giving  of 
cut-glass  and  silver  to  those  who  may  go  to  a  mining- 
camp  in  the  Rockies  or  to  Mexico,  or  even  into  a  ten -by- 


SOCIAL  ECONOMY  OF  THE  TWENTIETH  CENTURY.      6 1 

twelve  New  York  apartment.  Let  there  be  a  committee 
— we  are  so  fond  of  committees — to  receive  contributions 
in  a  money-bank  or  in  sealed  envelopes,  and  then  when 
all  is  collected,  let  this  committee  scour  the  shops  for 
articles  of  value,  and  when  found  consult  the  bridal  pair 
as  to  their  preferences.  The  choice  may  be  made  of  one 
or  more,  as  the  money  permits.  The  particular  gift 
will  still  be  a  surprise  and  yet  of  permanent  value.  Lace 
and  embroideries  are  always  good,  but  let  the  waste 
of  money  on  the  "latest"  in  orange- knives,  oyster-plates, 
go  up  higher,  that  is,  to  the  class  with  money  for  conspicu- 
ous waste,  if  it  must  still  exist,  but  let  sensible  people  be 
sensible,  and  not  require  the  young  folks  to  live  up  to 
their  hopes  for  future  advancement.  Wedding  gifts  are 
meant  to  be  kindly  help  to  a  young  housewife,  not  a  burden 
which  drags  her  down  to  the  level  of  a  drudge.  But  if 
the  house  is  surely  their  own,  and  in  the  country,  there 
will  be  shelves  to  fill  and  walls  to  cover ;  then  is  the  oppor- 
tunity for  individual  gifts  of  china,  glass,  and  pictures. 
To  make  the  best  of  the  increasing  tendency  to  a 
semi-country  living,  there  is  need  for  students  of  domestic 
architecture,  women  with  a  trained  taste  added  to  an 
experience  in  doing  things,  not  merely  seeing  them  al- 
ready done.  Let  these  evolve  beautiful  exteriors,  with 
interiors  so  finely  proportioned  that  they  will  be  a  delight 
to  all  beholders,  so  adapted  to  their  purposes  that  no  one 
will  wish  to  change  them.  There  is  a  right  dimension, 


62  THE   COST   OF   SHELTER. 

in  relation  to  other  dimensions,  which  is  always  satis- 
fying and  independent  of  furniture  or  decoration. 

The  ugly  houses,  ill  adapted  to  any  useful  purpose, 
which  line  the  roadside  bear  witness  to  the  ignorance  of 
the  women  of  to-day.  The  effort  for  mere  decoration, 
for  pretentious  show,  is  so  evident  that  one  wishes  for  an 
earthquake  to  swallow  them  all. 

Another  cause  for  rise  in  rent  demanded  for  a  given 
space  is  the  heavy  tax  borne  by  real  estate  for  public 
improvement,  for  good  lighting,  clean  streets,  plentiful 
water,  sufficient  sewerage,  free  baths,  parks,  and  schools. 
Again,  this  falls  heaviest  on  our  three-  to  five -thousand 
dollar  class,  who  pay  more  than  their  share,  especially 
when  the  millionaire  shirks  his  duty  by  paying  his  taxes 
elsewhere.  What  can  the  man  with  limited  income  do 
but  avoid  the  responsibility  of  a  family  ?  Has  he  a  moral 
right  to  bring  unhappiness  to  his  wife  and  two  children  ? 
Having  been  caught  in  the  trap,  why  give  him  all  the 
blame  if  he  tries  to  increase  his  income  by  speculation  ? 

The  more  one  studies  this  question  of  shelter  for  the 
salaried  group,  the  more  is  one  convinced  that  it  lies  at 
the  root  of  our  social  discontent  and  is  a  large  factor  in 
our  moral  as  well  as  physical  deterioration. 


CHAPTER   V. 

POSSIBILITIES  IN  SIGHT  PROVIDED  THE  HOUSEWIFE 
IS  PROGRESSIVE. 

"We  are  far  from  the  noon  of  man: 

There  is  time  for  the   race  to  grow." — TENNYSON. 
"  There  appears  no  limit  to  the  invasion  of  life  by  the  machine." 

H.  G.  WELLS. 

THE  house  as  a  centre  of  manufacturing  industry  has 
passed  (for  even  if  village  industries  do  spring  up,  the 
work-rooms  will  be  separate  from  the  living-rooms); 
the  house  as  a  sign  of  pecuniary  standing  is  passing: 
what  next  ?  Why,  of  course,  the  house  as  the  promoter 
of  "the  effective  life."  Rebel  as  the  artistic  individual 
may  at  this  word,  it  expresses  the  spirit  of  the  twentieth 
century  as  nothing  else  can.  Social  advance  must  be 
made  along  the  line  of  efficiency,  even  if  it  lead  to  some- 
thing different  and  not  at  first  sight  better.  The  appeal 
to  self-interest  is  soonest  answered.  The  man  or  woman 
with  any  ambition  will  keep  clean,  will  buy  better  milk  for 
the  baby,  will  pay  more  for  rent  if  he  or  she  is  convinced 
that  it  will  bring  in  or  save  money  in  the  end,  because 
money  has  been  the  measure  of  success  in  the  nineteenth 
century.  But  as  the  full  significance  of  this  "  machine- 
made"  age  is  grasped  it  will  be  seen  that  it  has  set  free 

63 


64  THE    COST    OF   SHELTER. 

the  human  laborer,  if  only  he  will  qualify  himself  to  use 
the  power  at  his  hand.  The  house  will  become  the 
first  lesson  in  the  use  of  mechanical  appliances,  in  control 
of  the  harnessed  forces  of  nature,  and  of  that  spirit  of 
cooperation  which  alone  can  bring  the  benefits  of  modern 
'science  to  the  doors  of  all.  One  family  cannot  as  a  rule  put 
up  in  a  city  or  in  the  suburbs — and  half  the  world  lives  in 
cities — its  own  idea  of  a  house  without  undue  expenditure ; 
but  ten  families  may  combine  and  secure  a  building 
which  fairly  suits  them  all.  I  say  fairly,  because  all 
cooperation  means  some  sacrifice  of  whim  or  special  lik- 
ing. The  well-balanced  individual  will,  however,  choose 
the  plan  yielding  on  the  whole  the  greater  efficiency, 
thus  following  a  law  of  natural  selection  which,  so  far, 
the  human  race  has  ignored — a  neglect  which  has  been 
carrying  him  toward  destruction  as  surely  as  there  is 
law  in  nature.  Is  this  neglect  to  go  on,  or  is  man  to  turn 
before  it  is  too  late  to  a  cultivation  of  the  effective  life? 
In  everything  else  he  has  advanced,  but  in  his  intimate 
personal  relations  with  nature  and  natural  force  he  has 
acted  as  if  he  believed  himself  not  only  lord  of  the  beasts 
of  the  field,  but  of  the  very  laws  of  nature  without  under- 
standing them.  Mechanical  progress  has  come  from 
an  humble  attitude  toward  the  powers  of  wind  and 
water.  Home  efficiency  will  arrive  just  as  soon  as  the 
home-keeper  will  put  herself  in  a  receptive  frame  of 
mind  and  be  prepared  to  learn  her  limitations  and  the 


POSSIBILITIES   IN   SIGHT.  65 

extent  of  her  control  of  material  things.  When  she  will 
stop  saying  "I  do  not  believe"  and  set  herself  to  learn 
patiently  the  facts  in  the  case,  then  will  housekeeping 
take  on  a  new  phase  and  the  house  become  the  nursery 
of  effective  workers  who  will  at  the  same  time  enjoy 
life.  To  manage  this  machine-driven  house  will  require 
delicate  handling;  but  let  women  once  overcome  their 
fear  of  machinery  and  they  will  use  it  with  skill. 

The  undue  influence  of  sentiment  retards  all  domestic 
progress.  Because  our  grandfather's  idea  of  perfect 
happiness  was  to  sit  before  the  fire  of  logs,  we  are  satisfied 
with  the  semblance  in  the  form  of  the  asbestos-covered 
gas-log.  "It  is  not  for  the  iconoclastic  inventor  or 
architect  to  improve  the  hearth  out  of  existence."  Senti- 
ment is  a  useful  emotion,  but  when  it  held  open  funerals 
of  diphtheria  victims,  society  stepped  in  and  forbade. 
With  a  certain  advance  in  social  consciousness  public 
opinion  will  step  in  and  regulate  sentiment  in  regard  to 
many  things  depending  on  individual  whim. 

Heating  might  now  be  accomplished  without  dust  and 
ashes,  without  the  destructive  effects  of  steam,  if  enough 
houses  would  take  electricity  to  enable  a  company  to 
supply  it  in  the  form  of  a  sort  of  dado  carrying  wires 
safely  embedded  in  a  non-conducting  substance,  or  in 
the  form  of  a  carpet  threaded  with  conducting  wire. 
Both  heating  and  cooling  apparatus  could  be  installed 
in  the  shape  of  a  motor  to  replace  the  punkah  man  and 


66  THE   COST   OF    SHELTER. 

the  present  buzz-wheel  fan,  and  to  give  fresh  air  without 
the  opening  of  windows  which  leads  .to  half  our  house- 
keeping miseries.  O  woman,  how  can  you  resist  the 
thought  of  a  clean,  cool  house,  sans  dust,  sans  flies  and 
mosquitoes,  sans  the  intolerable  street-noise,  with  abun- 
dance of  fresh  filtered  air  at  the  desired  temperature! 
It  is  all  ready  at  your  hand.  A  windmill  on  the  roof  can 
store  power,  or  a  solar  motor  can  save  the  sun's  rays, 
or  capsules  of  compressed  air  rn*y  be  had  to  run  the 
machine,  if  only  you  were  not  so  afraid  of  the  very  word 
machine  that  no  man  dares  propose  it  to  you.  Of  what 
use  is  all  the  invention  of  the  time  if  it  cannot  save  the 
lives  of  the  children,  half  of  whom  fall  victims  to  house 
diseases,  if  it  cannot  sweep  away  consumption  and 
influenza  and  all  the  kindred  diseases  arising  from  over- 
shelter  and  under-cleanliness  of  that  shelter  (lack  of  air). 
Both  men  and  women  are  sentimental  and  non-progres- 
sive, but  education  is  assumed  to  make  wiser  human 
beings.  Women  are  said  to  be  monopolizing  the  educa- 
tion; is  it  making  them  more  amenable  to  reasonableness 
and  less  under  the  control  of  unprogressive  conservatism  ? 
It  does  require  quick  adaptation  to  keep  up  with  the 
possibilities  of  invention,  but  should  we  not  aim  at  that 
which  will  advance  our  race  on  a  par  with  its  oppor- 
tunities? Every  other  department  is  getting  ahead  of 
us.  We  should  hang  our  heads  in  shame  that  we  have 
neglected  so  long  the  means  for  saner  living. 


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POSSIBILITIES   IN   SIGHT.  71 

It  has  been  said  that  the  highest  modern  civilization 
is  shown  not  so  much  by  costly  monuments  and  works 
of  art  as  by  the  perfection  of  house  conveniences.  Where 
then  do  we  stand?  And  in  what  direction  are  we  to 
look  for  the  coming  advance?  We  have  had  some  sixty 
years  of  public  sanitation;  we  have  secured  a  supply  of 
sanitary  experts  to  whom  all  questions  affecting  the 
physical  welfare  of  masses  of  people  may  be  referred. 
We  have  a  few  architects  who  know  the  requirements 
of  a  livable  house,  not  merely  one  which  shows  off  well  as 
first  built. 

We  need  sixty  years  of  private-house  sanitation.    We^ 
need  to  educate  house  experts,  home  advisers,  those  who  I 
know  how  to  examine  a  house  not  only  while  it  is  empty  I 
but  while  it  is  throbbing  with  the  life  of  the  family.  \ 
This  adviser  must  be,  for  many  years  at  least,  able  to 
suggest  practical  methods  of  overcoming  structural  de- 
fects (more  difficult  than  fresh  construction),  as  well  as 
of  modifying  personal  prejudices. 

These  house  experts  will,  I  think,  be  women  of  the 
broadest  education,  scientific  and  social.  They  will 
have  not  only  a  certain  amount  of  medical  knowledge, 
but  also  the  tact  and  enthusiasm  of  the  missionary  which 
will  bring  them  as  friends  and  benefactors  to  the  despair- 
ing mother  and  the  discouraged  householder. 

That  there  is  a  beginning  of  this  demand,  I  can  testify; 
that  it  will  grow,  I  believe  As  soon  as  a  group  of  trained 


72  THE    COST    OF    SHELTER. 

women  are  ready,  they  will  find  occupation  if  the  advance 
in  housing  conditions  which  I  foresee  is  to  become  a 
reality. 

Within  the  last  two  or  three  years  the  author  has  re- 
ceived requests  from  all  over  the  country  for  suggestions 
as  to  kitchen  design  and  construction. 

The  two  illustrations  here  given  show  one  little  step 
in  the  right  direction.  The  cuts  represent  a  remodelled 
kitchen  in  Providence,  R.  I. 

The  floor  is  of  lignolith  laid  down  in  one  sheet  and 
carried  up  as  a  wainscoting  so  that  no  crevice  exists  for 
entrance  of  insects  or  dust.  Such  floors  are  yet  in  their 
infancy  and  need  suitable  preparation  for  laying,  just 
as  macadamized  streets  fail  if  the  foundation  is  faulty. 
The  idea  is  all  that  we  are  here  concerned  with.  One 
of  the  features  to  be  especially  noted  is  the  use  of  glass 
for  shelves.  Why  should  the  hospital  monopolize  the 
materials  for  antiseptic  work?  When  it  is  understood 
how  much  hospital  work  is  caused  because  of  dirt  in 
the  preparation  and  keeping  of  food,  the  kitchen  will 
receive  its  share  of  attention. 

To-day  the  cost  of  shelter  is  about  one  third  for  the 
house  and  two  thirds  for  the  expense  of  running  it, 
largely  due  to  dirt  and  its  consequences.  Mr.  Wells 
wisely  says:  " Most  dusting  and  sweeping  would  be  quite 
avoidable  if  houses  were  wiselier  done." 

When   the   real   twentieth-century   house   is    put   up 


POSSIBILITIES    IN   SIGHT. 


7o 


our  young  engineer  and  college  instructor  will  be  willing  to 
pay  $400  to  $500  rent,  because  wages  and  running  expenses 
will  be  $100  less  and  the  company  owning  the  houses 
will  not  expect  more  than  4%,  largely  because  repairs 
will  be  less  and  permanence  of  tenure  more  assured. 
The  old  type  of  wooden  house  used  by  the  old  type  of 
tenant  could  not  be  expected  to  last  more  than  a  few 
years,  which  justified  a  higher  rate  of  interest.  For  the 
tenement  tenant  of  the  better  class  twenty  years  has  been 
the  estimate,  so  that  the  cost  of  building  could  not  be 
distributed  over  fifty  years  as  it  should  be. 

The  house  will  be  made  of  reinforced  concrete  or  its! 
successor;  certainly  not  of  wood.  Whether  a  single 
house  or  one  of  two  or  more  "compartments, "  each  family 
will  have  a  side,  that  is,  the  entrance  doors  will  not  be 
side  by  side.  Such  have  been  built  in  Somerville,  Mass., 
by  a  railroad  company  for  its  employees.  Those  who 
wish  to  have  a  garden  may;  but  no  one  will  be  obliged, 
for  there  will  be  regulations  about  the  general  appearance 
of  the  whole  park,  and  every  man  his  own  lawn-mower 
will  not  be  true.  The  cultivation  of  taste  will  have  so 
far  advanced  that  the  grouping  advised  by  the  landscape 
architect  will  appeal  to  the  occupant  more  than  his  own 
fancied  arrangement. 

Since  the  heating  will  be  supplied  from  outside,  there  i 
will  be  a  hothouse  and  cold-frames  for  those  who  wish! 
to  have  a  share  in  the  garden,  just  as  now  there  are  bins  I 


74  THE  COST  OF    SHELTER. 

in  the  basement.  The  care  of  these  may  replace  the  exer- 
cise now  gained  in  scrubbing  the  front  steps.  The  windows 
of  the  house  will  be  dust-proof,  fly-,  mosquito-,  and  moth- 
proof; the  air  supplied  will  be  strained  by  galleries  of 
screens,  if  indeed  social  advance  has  not  eliminated  soot 
from  chimneys  and  grit  from  the  streets.  Most  certainly 
dirt  will  not  be  permitted  to  come  in  on  shoes  and  long 
dresses.  Warmed  or  cooled,  moistened  or  dried  air  will 
be  circulated  as  needed.  In  such  a  house  rugs  may 
stay  undisturbed  for  a  month  or  more,  books  for  years, 
and  the  dust-cloth  be  rarely  in  evidence;  the  redding 
will  consist  of  putting  back  in  place  the  things  used; 
but  as  each  member  of  the  family  will  do  this  as  soon 
as  he  is  old  enough,  there  will  be  but  a  few  minutes'  work. 
The  breakfast  will  be  of  uncooked  or  simply  heated 
food,  parched  grains  and  cream,  fruit  fresh  or  dried,  and 
nuts.  If  coffee  or  cocoa  is  desired,  the  electric  heater 
serves  it  to  the  requisite  degree  of  heat.  Each  adult 
member  of  the  family  will  probably  take  this  in  his  own 
room  or  at  his  own  convenience,  without  the  formality  of 
a  meal.  The  few  glasses  and  other  dishes  may  be  plunged 
into  a  tank  of  water  and  left  for  future  cleaning. 
Luncheon  will  depend  altogether  on  the  habits  of  the 
family,  but  dinner,  at  whatever  hour  that  may  be,  will 
be  the  family  symposium.  Dressed  in  its  honor,  with  a 
sprightly  addition  to  the  conversation  of  experience  or 
information  or  conjecture,  there  will  be  form  and  cere- 


POSSIBILITIES   IN   SIGHT.  75 

mony  of  a  simple,  refined  kind,  such  that  once  again 
the  family  may  welcome  a  guest  without  anxiety.  Good 
conversation  and  fresh  interests  will  thus  come  into 
the  children's  lives.  How  much  they  have  missed  in 
•  these  days  of  the  barring  out  all  hospitality !  Is  it  per- 
chance one  reason,  if  not  the  chief,  why  manners  have 
degenerated  ? 

This  meal  will  not  have  more  than  four  courses  of 
food  carefully  selected  and  perfectly  cooked,  whether  in 
the  house  or  out  matters  not  so  it  is  served  fresh  and  of ; 
just  the  right  temperature.  No  kind  of  cooking  will  be 
permitted  which  "  meets  the  guest  in  the  hall  and  stays 
with  him  in  the  street";  therefore  the  dishes  may  be 
washed  by  neatly  dressed  maids  or  by  the  children,  who 
thus  learn  to  care  for  the  fitness  of  things;  plenty  of 
towels  and  hot  water,  with  all  hands  doing  a  little,  leaves 
everything  snug  and  no  one  too  tired.  We  will  let 
Mr.  H.  G.  Wells  describe  the  bedroom  of  the  future 
house :  * 

"The  room  is,  of  course,  very  clear  and  clean  and 
simple :  not  by  any  means  cheaply  equipped,  but  designed 
to  economize  the  labor  of  redding  and  repair  just  as 
much  as  possible. 

"It  is  beautifully  proportioned  and  rather  lower  than 
most  rooms  I  know  on  earth.  There  is  no  fireplace, 
and  I  am  perplexed  by  that  until  I  find  a  thermometer 

*  A  Modern  Utopia,  p.  103. 


76  THE    COST    OF   SHELTER. 

beside  six  switches  on  the  wall.  Above  this  switch- 
board is  a  brief  instruction:  one  switch  warms  the  floor, 
which  is  not  carpeted,  but  covered  by  a  substance  like 
soft  oilcloth;  one  warms  the  mattress  (which  is  of  metal 
with  resistance  coils  threaded  to  and  fro  in  it);  and  the 
others  warm  the  wall  in  various  degrees,  each  directing 
current  through  a  separate  system  of  resistances.  The 
casement  does  not  open,  but  above,  flush  with  the  ceiling, 
a  noiseless  rapid  fan  pumps  air  out  of  the  room.  The 
air  enters  by  a  Tobin  shaft. 

"There  is  a  recess  dressing-room,  equipped  with  a 
bath  and  all  that  is  necessary  to  one's  toilet;  and  the 
water,  one  remarks,  is  warmed,  if  one  desires  it  warm, 
by  passing  it  through  an  electrically-heated  spiral  of 
tubing.  A  cake  of  soap  drops  out  of  a  store-machine 
on  the  turn  of  a  handle,  and  when  you  have  done  with 
it,  you  drop  that  and  your  soiled  towels,  etc.,  which  are 
also  given  you  by  machines,  into  a  little  box,  through 
the  bottom  of  which  they  drop  at  once  and  sail  down 
a  smooth  shaft.  [Better  stay  in  the  box  and  not  infect 
the  shaft.— Author.] 

"A  little  notice  tells  you  the  price  of  the  room,  and 
you  gather  the  price  is  doubled  if  you  do  not  leave  the 
toilet  as  you  find  it.  Beside  the  bed,  and  to  be  lit  at 
night  by  a  handy  switch  over  the  pillow,  is  a  little  clock, 
its  face  flush  with  the  wall  [no  dust-catcher]. 

"The  room  has  no  corners  to  gather  dirt,  wall  meets 


POSSIBILITIES   IN    SIGHT.  77 

floor  with  a  gentle  curve,  and  the  apartment  could  be 
swept  out  effectually  by  a  few  strokes  of  a  mechanical 
sweeper  [sucked  out  by  the  now-used  cleaning- machine. — 
Author].  The  door-frames  and  window-frames  are  of 
metal,  rounded  and  impervious  to  draft.  You  are 
politely  requested  to  turn  a  handle  at  the  foot  of  your 
bed  before  leaving  the  room,  and  forthwith  the  frame 
turns  up  into  a  vertical  position,  and  the  bedclothes 
hang  airing.  You  stand  in  the  doorway  and  realize 
that  there  remains  not  a  minute's  work  for  any  one  to 
do.  Memories  of  the  fetid  disorder  of  many  an  earthly 
bedroom  after  a  night's  use  float  across  your  mind. 

[In  America  the  use  of  the  sleeping-room  as  a  sitting- 
room  is  more  common  than  in  England,  and  the  fetid  dis- 
order is  far  greater.] 

"And  you  must  not  imagine  this  dustless,  spotless, 
sweet  apartment  as  anything  but  beautiful.  Its  appear- 
ance is  a  little  unfamiliar,  of  course,  but  all  the  muddle 
of  dust-collecting  hangings  and  witless  ornament  that 
cover  the  earthly  bedroom,  the  valances,  the  curtains 
to  check  the  draft  from  the  ill-fitting  windows,  the  worth- 
less irrelevant  pictures,  usually  a  little  askew,  the  dusty 
carpets,  and  all  the  paraphernalia  about  the  dirty  black- 
leaded  fireplace  are  gone.  The  faintly  tinted  walls  are 
framed  with  just  one  clear  colored  line,  as  finely  placed 
as  the  member  of  a  Greek  capital;  the  door-handles 
and  the  lines  of  the  panels  of  the  door,  the  two  chairs, 


78  THE  COST   OF   SHELTER. 

the  framework  of  the  bed,  the  writing-table,  have  all 
that  exquisite  finish  of  contour  that  is  begotten  of  sus- 
tained artistic  effort.  The  graciously  shaped  windows 
each  frame  a  picture — since  they  are  draughtless  the 
window- seats  are  no  mere  mockeries  as  are  the  window- 
seats  of  earth — and  on  the  sill  the  sole  thing  to  need 
attention  in  the  room  is  one  little  bowl  of  blue  Alpine 
flowers." 

The  true  office  of  the  house  is  not  only  to  be  useful, 
but  to  be  aesthetically  a  background  for  the  dwellers 
therein,  subordinate  to  them,  not  obtrusive.  In  most 
of  our  modern  building  and  furnishing  the  people  are 
relegated  to  the  background  as  insignificant  figures. 
This  is  largely  why  the  home  feeling  is  absent,  why 
children  do  not  form  an  affection  for  the  rooms  they 
live  in. 

Let  there  be  nothing  in  the  room  because  some  other 
person  has  it;  this  shows  poverty  of  ideas.  Let  there 
be  nothing  in  the  room  which  does  not  satisfy  some 
need,  spiritual  ox  physical,  of  some  member  of  the  family. 
How  bare  our  rooms  would  become!  Let  the  skeptical 
reader  try  an  experiment.  Take  everything  out  of  a 
given  room,  then  bring  back  one  by  one  the  things  one 
feels  essential  not  merely  because  it  fills  space  but  for 
the  presence  of  which  some  one  can  give  a  good  and 
sufficient  reason.  It  will  mean  a  trial  of  a  few  days, 
because  it  is  not  easy  to  separate  habit  from  need.  A 


POSSIBILITIES   IN  SIGHT.  79 

table  has  stood  in  a  certain  spot:  that  is  no  reason  in 
itself  why  it  should  continue  to  stand  there  unless  it 
supplies  a  need. 

If  a  fetish  stands  in  the  way  of  social  progress,  do 
away  with  it.  If  the  idea  of  home  as  the  shell  is  standing 
in  the  way  of  developing  the  idea  of  home  as  a  state  of 
mind,  then  let  us  cast  loose  the  load  of  things  that  are 
sinking  us  in  the  sea  of  care  beyond  rescue. 

It  is  quite  possible  that  we  may  return  to  that  state 
of  mind  in  which  there  was  a  pleasure  in  caring  for 
beautiful  objects.  The  housewife  of  colonial  days  did 
not  disdain  the  washing  of  her  cups  of  precious  china 
or  doing  up  the  heirlooms  of  lace  and  embroidery. 
When  our  possessions  acquire  an  intrinsic  value,  when 
all  the  work  of  the  house  which  cannot  be  done  by 
machinery  is  that  of  handling  beautiful  things  and  has  a 
meaning  in  the  life  of  the  individual  and  the  family, 
service  will  not  be  required  in  the  vast  majority  of  homes : 
then  we  may  approach  to  the  Utopian  ideal  of  the  nobility 
of  labor. 

"The  plain  message  that  physcial  science  has  for  the 
world  at  large  is  this,  that  were  our  political  and  social 
and  moral  devices  only  as  well  contrived  to  their  ends 
as  a  linotype  machine,  an  antiseptic  operating-plant,  or  an 
electric  tram-car,  there  need  now,  at  the  present  moment, 
be  no  appreciable  toil  in  the  world,  and  only  the  smallest 
fraction  of  the  pain,  the  fear,  and  the  anxiety  that  now 


8o  THE   COST    OF   SHELTER. 

make  human  life  so  doubtful  in  its  value.  There  is 
more  than  enough  for  every  one  alive.  Science  stands 
as  a  too  competent  servant  behind  her  wrangling,  under- 
bred masters,  holding  out  resources,  devices,  and  remedies 
they  are  too  stupid  to  use."  * 

*H.  G.  Wells. 


CHAPTER    VI. 

THE     COST     PER     PERSON    AND     PER     FAMILY    OF 
VARIOUS    GRADES    OF    SHELTER. 

"The  strongest  needs  conquer."         J£ 

AN  outlay  of  $1500  to  $2500  will  secure  a  cottage  in 
the  country,  or  a  tenement  with  five  or  six  rooms  in  the 
suburbs,  for  a  wage-earner's  family.  The  rent  for  this 
should  be  from  $125  to  $200  per  year,  but,  as  in  the  case  of 
the  model  tenements  in  New  York,  a  minimum  of  sanitary 
appliances  and  of  labor-saving  devices  is  found  in  such 
dwellings.  They  are  adapted  to  a  family  life  of  mutual 
helpfulness  and  forbearance. 

The  lack  of  this  kind  of  housing  has  been  a  disgrace 
to  our  so-called  civilization.  Public  attention  has,  how- 
ever, been  directed  to  the  need,  and  it  is  gratifying  to 
find  in  the  report  of  the  U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor,  Bulletin 
54,  Sept.  1904,  a  full  account,  with  photographs  and  plans, 
of  the  work  of  sixte'en  large  manufacturing  establishments 
in  housing  their  employees. 

Euthenics,  the  art  of  better  living,  is  being  recognized 
as  of  money  value  in  the  case  of  the  wage-earning  class, 
but  the  wave  of  social  betterment  has  not  yet  lifted  the 

81 


82  THE   COST   OF  SHELTER. 

salaried  class  to  the  point  of  cooperation  for  their  own, 
elevation.  They  are  obliged  to  put  up  with  the  better 
grade  of  workmen's  dwellings,  or  to  pay  beyond  their 
means  for  a  poor  quality  of  the  house  designed  for  the 
leisure  class.  In  either  case,  the  weight  bears  hardest 
on  the  woman's  shoulders,  and  it  is  to  her  awakening 
that  we  must  look  for  an  impetus  toward  an  understanding 
of  the  problems  confronting  us. 

The  college-educated  women  of  the  country  believe 
so  fully  that  the  twentieth  century  will  develop  a  civili- 
zation in  which  brain-power  and  good  taste  will  outrank 
mere  lavish  display,  that  they  have  sent  out  a  call  to  their 
associations  to  devise  methods  of  sane  and  wholesome 
living  which  shall  leave  time  and  energy  free  for  intellec- 
tual pleasure — some,  at  least,  of  that  time  now  absorbed 
by  the  house  and  its  demands  as  insignia  of  social  rank. 

Trained  and  thoughtful  women  are  convinced  that  the 
first  step  in  social  redemption  is  adequate  and  adaptable 
shelter  for  the  family.  Just  so  long  as  tradition  and 
thoughtlessness  bind  the  wife  and  mother  to  that  form 
of  housekeeping  which  taxes  all  the  forces  of  man  to 
supply  money  and  of  women  to  spend  it,  so  long  will  the 
most  intelligent  women  decline  to  sacrifice  themselves  for 
so  little  return. 

The  constructive  arts  dealing  with  wood,  stone,  and 
metal  have  been  conceded  to  be  man's  province.  He 
has  used  new  materials  and  labor-saving  devices  in  rail- 


THE   COST   PER   PERSON   AND   PER   FAMILY.  83 

way  stations  and  place  of  amusements,  not  selfishly,  but 
because  of  the  appreciation  of  the  travelling  public.  It 
is  the  fashion  to  decry  labor-saving  devices  in  the  house, 
because  they  do  away  with  that  sign  of  pecuniary  ability, 
the  capped  and  aproned  maid.  The  obvious  saving  of 
steps  by  the  speaking-tube  and  telephone-call  is  frowned 
upon  for  the  same  reason.  It  is  this  attitude  of  society 
which  stands  in  the  way  of  the  adoption  of  those  mechanical 
helps  which  might  do  away  with  nearly  all  the  drudgery 
and  dirty  heavy  work  of  the  house. 

The  new  epoch  *  "is  more  and  more  replacing  muscle- 
power  fed  on  wheat  at  eighty  cents  a  bushel,  by  machine- 
power  fed  on  coal  at  five  cents  a  bushel,"  thus  liberating 
man  from  hard  and  deadening  toil.  As  his  mental  activ- 
ity increases  his  needs  in  the  way  of  the  comforts  and 
decencies  of  refined  living  increase.  More  sanitary 
appliances  are  demanded,  more  expense  for  fundamental 
cleanliness  is  incurred,  and  for  that  tidiness  and  trimness 
of  aspect  inside  and  outside  the  house  which  adds  both 
to  the  labor  and  to  the  cost  of  living,  especially  in  old- 
style  houses. 

While  we  can  but  applaud  this  desire,  we  must  confess 
that  the  new  building  laws,  the  increased  cost  of  land,  and 
the  higher  wages  of  workmen  have  raised  the  cost  of 
shelter  for  human  efficiency  to  double  or  treble  that  of 

*  The  New  Epoch.     Geo.  S.  Morison. 


or  THE 


84  THE  COST   OF   SHELTER. 

the  so-called  workman's  cottage.  A  fair  rule  is  that 
each  room  costs  $1000  to  $2000  to  build. 

This  means  that  our  lowest  limit  of  income,  $1000  a 
year  with  $200  for  rent,  can  have  only  two  or  at  most 
three  rooms  and  bath,  and  those  without  elevators  and  jani- 
tor service.  It  is  only  when  the  income  reaches  $2000  to 
$3000  a  year  that  the  family  may  have  the  advantage 
of  good  building  in  a  good  locality,  and  even  then  it 
means  some  sacrifice  in  other  directions.  It  is  clear 
that  the  common  theory  that  a  young  man  must  have  a 
salary  of  $3000  a  year  before  he  dares  to  marry  has  some 
foundation  when  $600  to  $800  is  demanded  for  rent. 

The  increased  sanitary  requirements  have  doubled 
the  cost  of  a  given  enclosed  space,  the  finish  and  fittings 
now  found  in  the  best  houses  have  doubled  this  again,  so 
that  it  is  quite  within  bounds  to  say  that  a  house  which 
might  have  been  put  up  to  meet  the  needs  of  the  day  in 
1850  for,  say,  $5000  will  now  cost  $20,000. 

Much  of  the  increase  is  for  real  comfort  and  advance 
in  decent  living,  and  so  far  it  is  to  be  commended.  Such 
part  of  the  increase  as  is  for  ostentation,  for  show  and 
sham,  is  to  be  frowned  upon,  for  this  high  cost  of  shelter  is 
to-day  the  greatest  menace  to  the  social  welfare  of  the 
community.  When  the  average  young  man  finds  it 
impossible  to  support  a  family,  when  the  professional  man 
finds  it  necessary  to  supplement  his  chosen  work  by  pot- 
boiling,  by  public  lectures  and  any  outside  work  which 


THE   COST    PER   PERSON  AND   PER   FAMILY.  85 

will  bring  in  money,  what  wonder  that  scholarship  is  not 
thriving  in  America?  Pitiful  tales  of  such  stifling  of 
effort  have  come  to  my  ears,  and  have  in  large  part  led 
me  to  make  a  plea  for  a  scientific  study  of  the  living 
conditions  of  this  class,  and  for  a  readjustment  of  ideals 
to  the  absolute  facts  of  the  situation. 

We  may  give  sympathy  to  those  Italians  who  pay  only 
$2  a  month  for  the  shelter  of  the  whole  family,  but 
we  must  give  help  to  the  harder  case  of  a  family  with 
refined  tastes  and  high  ideals  who  can  pay  only  $200  a 
year.  • 

In  the  real  country,  at  a  distance  from  the  railroad, 
air,  water,  and  soil  are  cheap.  Here  a  house  may  be 
put  up  with  its  own  windmill  or  gas-engine  to  pump 
water,  with  its  own  drainage  system,  giving  all  the  sanitary 
comforts  of  the  city  house,  for  about  $5000.  The  same- 
inside  comforts "  in  jme  quarter  the  space,  minus  tht 
isolation  and  garden,  may  be  had  in  a  suburban  block 
for  one  half  that  sum.  This  is  probably  the  least  expen- 
sive shelter  to-day  for  the  family  whose  duties  require 
one  or  more  members  of  it  to  be  in  the  city  daily,  for, 
as  the  centre  of  the  city  is  approached,  land  rent  increases, 
so  that  dwelling  space  must  be  again  curtailed  one  half 
or  rent  doubled.  The  majority  take  half  a  house  or  go 
into  the  city  and  put  up  with  one  quarter  the  space. 

The  curtailment  of  space  in  which  families  live  is 
going  on  at  an  alarming  rate,  although  not  yet  seriously 


86 


THE    COST    OF    SHELTER. 


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88  THE    COST    OF    SHELTER. 

taken  into  account  by  the  sociologist  for  the  group  we 
are  studying. 

This  crowding  is  causing  the  refinements  of  life  to  be 
disregarded,  is  depriving  the  children  of  their  rights, 
and  doing  them  almost  more  harm  than  comes  to  the 
tenement  dwellers,  for  they  have  the  parks  to  play  in 
and  are  not  kept  within  doors. 

Mr.  Michael  Lane  in  his  "Level  of  Social  Motion" 
claims  that  present  tendencies  are  leading  to  a  level  of  $2000 
a  year  and  a  family  of  two  children  as  an  average.  Mr. 
Wells  claims  as  a  tendency  in  living  conditions  the  prac- 
tically automatic  and  servantless  household.  In  con- 
nection with  the  Mary  Lowell  Stone  Home  Economics 
Exhibit  a  design  of  an  approach  to  this  kind  of  a  dwell- 
ing was  asked  for  in  sketch.  The  accompanying  plans 
were  made  by  a  firm  who  have  had  not  only  experience 
in  this  kind  of  domestic  building,  but  who  have  sympathy 
with  and  personal  knowledge  of  similar  conditions  in 
widely  separated  parts  of  the  country. 

These  sketches  are  not  of  an  ideal  house  and  not  for 
a  given  plot  of  land,  but  only  a  hint  of  what  Mrs.  Michael 
Lane  "must  expect  if  she  attempts  to  build  in  the  country 
or  suburbs." 

Since  these  were  drawn  many  changes  have  come  about 
in  costs  and  in  materials  available.  The  architects 
expressly  disclaim  the  word  "model"  in  relation  to 
them.  Mrs.  Lane  and  her  two  children  will  do  their 


THE    COST    PER    PERSON   AND    PER    FAMILY.  89 

own  work,  and  therefore  steps  and  stairs  must  be  few, 
and  yet  they  wish  light  and  air  and  cleanliness. 

The  author  hopes  that  her  readers  will  make  a  study 
of  house-plans,  not  the  cheap  ones,  but  those  that  will 
bear  the  test  of  time  and  living  in. 

The  increased  cost  of  shelter  should  mean  both  more 
comfort  and  greater  beauty.  If  it  does  not,  something 
is  wrong  with  society. 

It  appears  from  all  that  has  been  gathered  that  single 
houses  for  a  family  of  five  will  cost  about  $5000  to 
$10,000  for  some  years  to  come;  that  these  houses  should 
be  so  constructed  and  cared  for  as  to  rent  for  $300  to 
$400  if  the  occupant  is  to  keep  the  grounds  in  order, 
to  use  the  house  with  care,  and  furnish  heat  and  light. 

The  question  of  return  on  capital  invested  and  of 
care  of  exteriors  and  grounds  must  be  studied  most  care- 
fully in  the  light  of  the  new  conditions,  and  a  new  set 
of  conventions  devised  by  society  to  meet  the  various 
circumstances  arising  out  of  them. 

This  suburban  living  is  the  vital  point  to  be  attacked, 
because  in  cities  the  matter  is  already  pretty  well  settled; 
there  is  in  sight  nothing  that  will  greatly  change  the  rule 
already  given,  a  cost  of  $1000  per  room  of  about  1200  cubic 
feet,  with  the  finish  and  sanitary  appliances  demanded. 

Our  family  of  five  must  pay  for  rent  $500  to  $800  for 
the  smallest  quarters  they  can  compress  themselves  into. 
Subtracting  the  cost  of  heat  and  light  and  the  car-fares, 


90  THE   COST  OF   SHELTER. 

this  may  be  no  more  expensive  than  the  suburban  house 
at  $300  or  $400,  but  the  difference  comes  in  light  and 
air.  The  upper  floors  of  an  isolated  skyscraper  give 
more  than  a  country  house,  but  at  the  expense  of  other 
houses  in  the  darkened  street. 

In  the  city  the  question  is  then  not  so  much  one  of 

st  of  construction  as  of  a  fair  arrangement  of  streets 
/and  parks,  so  as  to  avoid  the  loss  of  light  and  air  for 
living-places.  The  single  individual  may  find  shelter  of 
a  safe  and  refined  sort  in  all  respects  except  air  for  $200 
to  $300  a  year  in  the  newer  apartment-houses,  and  two 
friends  to  share  it  may  halve  this  sum.  A  great  need  is 
for  as  good  rooms  to  be  furnished  in  the  suburbs  where 
more  light  and  air  may  be  had. 

The  content  of  the  country  house  costing  $5000  to 
$10,000  will  be  approximately  50,000  to  70,000  cubic 
feet,  or  10,000  for  a  person.  The  suburban  block  will 
furnish  about  12,000  to  20,000  for  the  family,  while  the 
city  apartment  of  six  so-called  rooms  renting  for  from 
$400  to  $500  a  year  shrinks  to  6000  to  8000  cubic  feet, 
giving  only  one  tenth  the  air-space  the  country  house 
affords,  as  well  as  far  less  outside  air  and  sunshine. 
The  best  city  tenements  cost  $i  a  week  for  600  cubic 
feet  air-space.  What  wonder  that  the  sanitarian  is 
aghast  at  the  prospect! 

According  to  the  President  of  the  English  Sanitary  In- 
spectors' Association  it  seems  probable  that  if  the  nine- 


THE   COST   PER   PERSON   AND   PER   FAMILY.  91 

teenth-century  city  continues  to  drain  the  country  of  its 
potentially  intellectual  class  and  to  squeeze  them  into 
smaller  and  smaller  quarters,  it  will  dry  up  the  reservoirs 
of  strength  in  the  population  (address,  Aug.  18,  1905). 

The  houses  of  the  Morris  Building  Co.,  illustrated 
in  Chapter  II,  show  what  may  be  done.  These  houses 
rent  for  $35  to  $45  a  month  with  constant  heat  and 
hot  water,  so  that  the  heavy  work  is  reduced  to  a  mini- 
mum; but  the  exigencies  of  family  life  are  illustrated  in 
the  fact  of  the  almost  universal  demand  of  the  tenants  for 
continuous  heat  and  hot  water  night  as  well  as  day.  The 
ordinary  childless  apartment  house  banks  its  fires  at 
night.  A  supplementary  apparatus  would  mean  work  by 
the  tenants,  however.  This  is  a  good  example  of  the 
balance  which  must  be  struck  in  all  new  plans  until  they 
are  tested. 

The  change  in  what  one  gains  under  the  name  of 
shelter,  what  one  pays  rent  for,  must  be  kept  clearly  in 
mind.  Two  or  three  decades  since  it  was  a  tight  roof, 
thinly  plastered  walls,  and  a  chimney  with  "thimble- 
holes  for  stoves,"  possibly  a  furnace  with  small  tin  flues, 
a  well  or  cistern,  or  perhaps  one  faucet  delivering  a  small 
stream  of  water.  To-day  even  in  the  suburbs  there  is 
furnished  light,  heat,  abundant  water,  care  of  halls  and 
sidewalks.  The  elevator-boy  takes  the  place  of  "  buttons," 
the  engineer  and  janitor  relieve  the  man  of  the  house  of 
care,  so  that  it  may  not  be  so  extravagant  as  it  sounds 


Q2  THE    COST   OF   SHELTER. 

to  give  one  third  the  $3000  income  for  rent,  since  it 
stops  that  leaky  sieve,  that  bottomless  bag  of  "operating 
expenses."  The  income  may  be  pretty  definitely  esti- 
mated in  this  case,  especially  if  meals  are  taken  in  the 
cafe.  If  the  family  dine  as  it  happens,  the  cost  mounts 
up.  Here  are  a  few  estimates  for  verification  and  criti- 
cism: 

Rent  of  an  apartment $600.00  to  $700.00 

Meals 1200.00  "  1000.00 

Clothing 400.00  "  600.00 

Incidentals,  amusements,  etc.  . 200.00  "  300.00 

Savings,  nil. 


Total  income $2400.00  to  $2600.00 

If  the  wife  can  manage  the  " kitchenette"  and  part  of 
the  clothing,  about  $600  may  be  saved,  but  in  that  case  it 
represents  her  earnings,  and  should  be  at  her  disposal. 
If  it  should  be  possible  for  safe  shelter  to  be  had  for  $400, 
then  with  the  wife's  help  $700  should  be  the  sum  in  the 
"  region  of  choice."  I  hold  that,  unless  the  income  can 
be  managed  so  as  to  secure  choice,  all  the  daily  toil  is 
embittered.  Even  if  some  is  spent  foolishly,  it  is  safer 
than  the  burden  "just  not  enough." 

The  more  common  cost  of  decent  living  in  our  Eastern 
cities  is : 


THE   COST   PER   PERSON  AND   PER   FAMILY.  93 

Rent $1000  to  $1500 

Meals 1200  "     1400 

Clothing 500  "       700 

Incidentals 300  "      600 

Savings,  nil. 

Total $3000  to  $4000 

This  goes  far  toward  justifying  the  saying  that  a  young 
man  cannot  afford  to  marry  on  less  than  $3000  a  year. 

With  these  figures  in  mind,  what  can  our  $2000  family 
with  two  children  do?  The  rent  that  they  can  pay 
will  not  cover  service  or  heat.  There  must  be  a  maid  to 
fill  the  lamps,  see  to  the  furnace,  help  with  the  cooking, 
and  the  wife  must  stay  by  the  house  pretty  closely  and 
probably  decline  most  invitations.  For  the  five  persons, 
ten  dollars  a  week  for  raw-food  materials  and  five  for 
its  preparation  is  the  lowest  limit  likely  to  be  cheerfully 
submitted  to. 

Rent,  heat,  light,  etc $400 

Food 800 

Clothing  hardly  less  than.  . . . : 400 

Children's     education,    even     with    free 

schools,  and  their  illnesses  will  use  up.       100 

Car-fares,  church,  etc 100 

Wages  and  sundries 200 

Total $2000 

In  the  bank  nothing. 


94  THE   COST   OF  SHELTER. 

But  what  shelter  can  this  refined,  intelligent  family 
find  to-day  for  $400?  Certainly  nothing  with  modern 
conveniences.  The  lack  of  these  is  made  up  by  women's 
work — hard,  rough  work.  And  that  is  the  crux  of  the 
servant  problem  to-day.  It  is  the  reason  why  more 
families  do  not  go  into  the  country  to  live.  The  work 
required  in  an  old  house  to  bring  living  up  to  modern 
standards  is  too  appalling  to  be  undertaken  lightly. 

In  England  the  Sunlight  Park  and  other  plans,  in 
America  the  Dayton  and  Cincinnati  schemes,  are  samples 
of  what  is  being  done  for  the  $500  to  $800  family,  but  where 
are  the  examples  (outside  the  Morris  houses)  for  the  sal- 
aried class  for  whom  we  are  pleading  ?  The  great  army 
of  would-be  home-makers  are  forced  into  a  nomadic  life 
by  the  exigencies  resulting  from  the  great  combines — a 
shifting  of  offices,  a  closing  of  factories,  a  breaking  up  of 
hundreds  of  homes.  I  believe  this  to  be  the  chief  factor 
in  the  decline  of  the  American  home — a  hundred-fold 
more  potent  than  the  college  education  of  women. 

The  unthinking  comment  on  this  rise  in  the  cost  of 
shelter  is  usually  condemnation  of  greedy  landlords  and 
soulless  capitalists;  but  is  that  the  whole  story? 

In  the  present  order  of  things  it  seems  to  be  inevitable 
that  the  gain  of  one  class  in  the  community  is  loss  to 
another.  Probably  the  law  has  always  existed,  and  only 
the  very  rapid  and  sudden  changes  bring  it  into  promi- 
nence, because  of  the  swift  readjustment  needed,  an 


THE   COST   PER   PERSON  AND   PER   FAMILY.  95 

operation    which    torpid    human    nature    resents    when 
consciously    pressed. 

For  instance,  the  efforts  of  the  philanthropist  and 
working  man  together  have  succeeded  in  shortening 
hours  of  labor  and  increasing  wages — without,  alas! 
increasing  the  speed  or  quality  of  the  work  done, 
especially  in  the  trades  which  have  to  do  with  materials 
of  construction,  so  that  house-building  has  about  doubled 
in  cost  within  twenty-five  years,  largely  due  to  cost  of 
labor.  This  increased  cost  has  fallen  heavily  on  the 
very  group  of  people  least  able  to  bear  it,  the  skilled 
artisan,  the  teacher,  and  the  young  salaried  man.  Again 
I  call  attention  to  the  need  of  a  philanthropist  who 
shall  raise  his  eyes  to  that  group,  the  hope  of  our  democ- 
racy, those  whom  he  has  held  to  be  able  to  help  them- 
selves— and  given  time  would  do  so;  but  time  is  the  very 
thing  denied  them  in  this  motor  age.  Help  to  make 
quick  adjustment  must  come  to  the  rescue  of  those  to 
whom  time  more  than  equals  money. 

One  used  to  wait  patiently  for  seed-sown  lawns  to  be- 
come velvety  turf.  Money  can  bring  sod  from  afar  and 
in  a  season  give  the  results  of  years.  So  the  housing  of 
the  $2000  family  can  be  accomplished  just  as  soon  as 
it  seems  sufficiently  desirable.  It  needs  a  research 
just  as  truly  as  the  cancer  problem  or  desert  botany,  and 
affects  thousands  more. 

One    other   cause   of   increased    cost   in   construction 


96  THE   COST   OF   SHELTER. 

and  operation  which  does,  if  wisely  carried  out,  increase 
health  and  efficiency  is  the  sanitary  provision  of  our 
recent  building  laws. 

The  instalment  of  these  sanitary  appliances  becomes 
increasingly  costly  because  of  the  rise  in  wages  of  the 
workmen,  plumbers,  masons,  etc.  The  careful  statistics 
of  the  Bureau  of  Labor  show  conclusively  that  all  build- 
ing trades  have  decreased  hours  of  labor  and  increased 
wages  per  hour,  so  that  cost  of  construction  has  doubled, 
and  the  sanitary  requirements  have  again  doubled  the 
cost,  so  that  it  is  easy  to  see  why  the  family  with  a  station- 
ary income  has  quartered  its  dwelling- space. 

The  end  is  not  yet:  the  new  devices  mentioned  in 
previous  chapters  will  at  first  increase  cost  of  construc- 
tion. 

From  lack  of  business  training  the  public  is  at  fault 
in  estimating  relative  costs.  A  well-built  "automatic 
house"  costs  too  much,  they  say.  Yes,  but  what  does  it 
save?  Cost  looms  large,  saving  seems  small.  More- 
over, the  value  of  mental  serenity,  of  that  peace  of  mind 
consequent  on  the  smooth  running  of  the  domestic  machine, 
is  undervalued.  The  American  child  such  as  he  is  is 
largely  the  product  of  the  American  house  and  its  ill 
adapted  construction.  I  must  reiterate  my  belief  that 
the  modification  of  the  house  itself  to  the  life  the 
twentieth  century  is  calling  for  is  the  first  step  in  social 
reform. 


CHAPTER  VH. 

THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  COST  OF  HOUSING  AND 
TOTAL  INCOME. 

"It  must  be  made  possible  to  live  within  one's  income." 

/THE  thrifty  French  rule  is  one  fifth  for  rent.  In 
towns  where  land  is  cheap  and  wood  abundant,  or  in 
college  communities  exempt  from  taxes,  comfortable 
housing  is  found  in  this  country  for  as  little  as  fifteen 
or  eighteen  per  cent  of  the  total  income.  In  some  mining 
towns  where  all  prospects  are  uncertain  and  the  house 
has  no  particular  social  significance  the  rent  may  be 
even  lower,  although  it  is  often  very  high.  It  depends 
on  the  demand,  on  competition  rather  than  quality.  In 
our  older  and  more  settled  communities  it  is  most  com- 
mon for  rent  to  use  up  one  fourth  the  salary  of  all  town  I 
dwellers  with  incomes  within  our  limits.  This  was  true 
in  Boston  fifty  years  ago,  and  it  is  true  to-day  in  dozens 
of  cities  and  towns  personally  investigated.  It  is  not 
unknown  that  a  teacher  or  business  man  should  exceed 

97 


98  THE   COST   OF   SHELTER. 

this  in  the  hope  of  a  rise  in  salary  by  the  second  year. 
Adding  the  expenses  of  operating  the  house,  of  repairs 
and  additions  and  improvements  if  the  house  is  owned, 
nearly  half  the  money  available  must  go  for  the  mere 
housing  of  the  family. 

If  it  is  true,  as  I  believe  it  is,  that  for  each  fraction 
over  one  fifth  spent  for  rent  a  saving  must  be  made 
in  some  other  direction — in  the  daily  expense,  less  service, 
less  costly  food,  or  less  expensive  clothing,  or,  last  to  be 
cut  down,  less  of  the  real  pleasure  of  life, — it  will  be  seen 
what  a  far-reaching  question  this  is,  how  it  touches  the 
vital  point,  to  have  or  not  to  have  other  good  things  in 
life. 

A  large  part  of  the  increase  is  due,  as  we  have  said,  to 
increased  demand  for  sanitary  conveniences,  but  far 
more  potent  is  the  pressure  resulting  from  the  price  of 
land. 

This  pressure  has  led  to  the  building  of  smaller  and 
smaller  apartments,  so  that  four  and  six  rooms  are  made 
out  of  floor-space  sufficient  for  two.  It  sounds  better 
to  say  we  have  a  six-room  flat,  even  though  there  is  no 
more  privacy  than  in  two  rooms,  for  the  rooms  are  mere 
cells  unless  the  doors  are  always  open.  It  is  not  uncom- 
mon in  such  suites  renting  for  $50  to  $60  per  month  for 
six  rooms,  to  find  three  of  them  with  only  one  window 
on  one  side,  with  no  chance  for  cross-ventilation  unless 
the  doors  of  the  whole  suite  are  open. 


COST   OF   HOUSING   AND   TOTAL   INCOME.  99 

This  style  of  building  prevails  even  in  the  suburbs 
where  air  and  sunshine  should  be  free.  The  would- 
be  renter  looking  at  such  suites  with  all  the  doors  open 
and  the  rooms  innocent  of  fried  fish  and  bacon  does  not 
think  of  the  place  as  it  will  be  under  living  conditions 
when  privacy  can  be  had  only  by  smothering. 

The  model  tenements  in  New  York  rent  for  one  dollar 
per  week  per  room;  the  better  houses  for  double,  or 
two  dollars  for  450  cubic  feet.  Many  of  those  I  have 
examined  renting  for  forty  to  sixty  dollars  per  month 
give  no  more  space  for  the  money,  only  a  little  better 
finish — marble  and  tile  in  the  bath-room,  for  instance. 

The  three-room  tenement  does,  however,  shelter  as 
many  persons  as  the  six-room  flat,  hence  there  is  more 
real  overcrowding.  In  all  these  grades  of  shelter  it 
is  fresh  air  that  is  wanting.  What  wonder  the  white 
plague  is  always  with  us?  What  remedy  so  long  as 
millions  sleep  in  closets  with  no  air-currents  passing 
through  ? 

Accepting  the  French  rule,  the  artisan  who  rents  the 
model  tenement  at  $3.50  per  week  should  earn  $3  a 
day  wage  for  six  days.  If  he  earn  only  $2,  then  more  than 
one  quarter  must  go  for  housing.  There  are  hundreds 
of  Italian  families  in  New  York  who  pay  only  $2  per 
month  for  such  shelter  as  they  have,  but  it  is  only  pro- 
viding for  the  primitive  idea  of  mere  shelter,  not  for  the 
comforts  of  a  true  home  life.  After  the  fashion  of  early 


IOC  THE   COST   OF   SHELTER. 

man,  these  people  spend  their  lives  in  the  open  air,  eat 
wherever  they  may  be,  and  use  this  makeshift  shelter  as 
protection  from  the  weather  and  as  a  place  of  deposit 
for  such  articles  as  they  do  not  carry  about  with  them 
and  for  such  weaklings  as  cannot  travel. 

As  man  rises  in  the  scale  of  wants  he  pays  more,  in 
attention  and  in  money,  for  housing,  because  he  leaves 
wife  and  children  to  its  comforts  while  he  goes  forth  to 
his  daily  tasks.  As  ideals  rise,  the  proportion  rises  until 
even  one  third  of  his  earnings  goes  for  mere  shelter. 
But  this  limits  his  desires  in  other  directions,  so  that 
it  becomes  a  pertinent  question,  when  is  it  right  to  give 
as  much  as  one  third  of  the  moderate  income  for  hous- 
ing ?  As  every  heart  knows  its  own  bitterness,  so  every 
man  knows  his  own  business  and  what  proportion  of 
his  income  he  is  willing  to  spend  for  a  house,  for  the 
comforts  of  life  pertain  largely  to  bed  and  board.  It 
must  be  acknowledged,  however,  that  comfort  and 
discomfort  are  so  largely  matters  of  habit  and  personal 
point  of  view  that  education  as  to  ideals  is  an  important 
duty  of  society  in  its  own  defence. 

If  two  people  without  children  prefer  to  spend  more 
on  shelter  than  on  any  other  one  thing,  then  with  $3000 
a  year,  $1000  may  be  given  for  rent  if  that  covers  heat, 
light,  and  general  outside  care.  But  the  family  with 
children  to  consider  must  not  think  of  allowing  one 
third  for  rent  under  our  very  highest  limit  of  $5000  a 


COST    OF    HOUSING   AND    TOTAL   INCOME.  IOI 

year,  and  it  is  unwise  even  then.  In  fact  the  ratio  must 
be  governed  by  circumstances.  It  is  true,  however,  that 
the  conditions  must  be  interpreted  by  a  fixed  principle 
in  living  and  not  by  any  mere  fashion  or  prejudice  of 
the  moment. 

The  one  question  every  person  asks  when  these  sug- 
gested improvements  are  discussed  is,  but  how  much 
will  it  cost  ?  Thus  confessing  that  cost,  not  effectiveness, 
is  the  measure;  that  old  ideals  as  to  money  value  still 
rule  the  world.  It  costs  too  much  to  have  a  furnace 
large  enough  to  warm  a  sufficient  volume  of  air,  it  costs 
too  much  to  put  in  safe  plumbing,  it  costs  too  much  to 
keep  the  house  clean,  and  so  on  through  the  list.  We 
have  been  too  busy  getting  and  spending  money  to  study 
the  cost  of  neglect  of  cardinal  principles  of  right  living. 
The  farmer  knows  the  cost  of  his  young  animals,  but  the 
father  cares  little  and  knows  less  of  what  it  ought  to 
cost  to  bring  up  his  children — of  the  economy  of  spending 
wisely  on  a  safe  shelter  for  them. 

A  new  estimate  of  what  necessary  things  must  cost 
has  to  be  made  before  the  present  generation  will  live 
comfortably  in  presence  of  the  account-book. 

Here  again  a  readjustment  is  coming;  some  expenses 
in  house  construction  common  now  will  be  lessened  or 
done  away  with ;  for  example,  fancy  shapes,  grooved  and 
carved  wood,  projecting  windows  and  door-frames. 

It  is  usual,  when  the  various  new  methods  are  brought 


102  THE   COST    OF    SHELTER. 

up,  to  estimate  the  cost  as  additional  to  all  that  has  gone 
before,  rather  than  to  see  in  it  a  substitute  for  much  that 
may  go.  ' 

Our  family  with  $1500  income  may  safely  pay  $300 
for  rent,  if  that  covers  enough  comfort  and  does  not 
mean  too  much  car-fare. 

The  house  may  cost  $3000  if  built  on  the  old  lines,  and 
if  the  land  it  is  placed  on  is  not  too  expensive. 

A  fire-proof  house  such  as  is  described  in  the  July 
number  of  the  Brickbuilder  and  Architect,  85  Water  St., 
Boston,  and  probably  also  a  house  of  reinforced  concrete, 
will  cost  at  present  some  $10,000  besides  the  land.  Be- 
cause of  freedom  from  repairs  it  should  be  possible  to 
rent  such  houses  for  $500,  which  will  bring  them  within 
the  reach  of  our  $3000  a  year  family,  but  not  within 
the  means  of  the  $2000.  What  is  to  be  done? 

It  will  be  remarked  by  some  that  little  attention  has 

I 

been  given  in  these  pages  to  the  various  so-called  coopera- 
tive plans,  like  Mrs.  Stuckert's  oval  of  fifty  houses  con- 
nected by  a  tramway  at  each  level,  with  a  central  kitchen 
from  which  all  meals  come  and  to  which  all  used  dishes 
return,  with  a  central  office  from  which  service  is 
sent,  etc. 

Frankly,  to  my  mind  this  is  not  enough  better  than  the 
apartment  hotel,  as  we  now  know  it,  to  pay  for  the  effort 
to  establish  it.  As- now-evolved  by  demand,  the  establish- 
ments renting  from  one  to  fifteen  thousand  a  year  are 


COST    OF   HOUSING  AND   TOTAL   INCOME.  103 

on  progressive  lines.  According  to  Mr.  Wells,  this 
shareholding  class  is  on  the  way  to  extinction  in  any 
case,  fortunately  he  also  thinks,  and  the  student  of  social 
economics  need  not  concern  himself  with  its  future,  only 
so  far  as  its  example  influences  the  real  bone  and  sinew 
of  the  republic,  the  working  men  and  women  who  make 
the  world  the  place  it  is. 

Within  the  ten-mile  radius  it  has  been  usual  to  in- 
clude a  front  yard,  if  not  a  garden,  in  the  house-lot.  The 
cost  of  keeping  this  in  the  trim  fashion  decreed  as  essential, 
of  planting  and  pruning  of  shrubs,  of  maintaining  in 
immaculate  condition  the  sidewalks  and  front  steps, 
like  most  of  the  items  in  cost  of  living,  is  due  to  changed 
standards,  just  as  the  cost  of  table-board  has  advanced 
from  $3  to  $6  without  a  corresponding  betterment  in 
quality. 

Engle's  law,  "The  lodging,  warming,  and  lighting  have 
an  invariable  proportion  whatever  the  income,"  does 
not  hold  under  modern  conditions  for  the  group  we  are 
considering,  for  our  wise  ones  need  the  best,  and  not  a 
few  of  them  are  unwilling  to  buy  their  family  sanctity 
at  the  price  of  a  closet  in  the  basement  for  the  faithful 
maid. 

Plans  may  look  well  on  paper,  the  completed  house 
may  seem  attractive,  but  when  the  family  live  in  the  house 
its  deficiencies  become  apparent.  Cheap  materials, 
flimsy  construction,  damp  location,  any  one  of  a  dozen 


104  THE    COST    OF    SHELTER. 

possibilities  may  make  the  family  uncomfortable,  may 
cost  in  heating  and  doctor's  bills,  may  compel  a  moving 
before  the  year  is  out.  Cheap  houses  in  this  decade 
are  suspicious;  the  more  need  for  a  knowledge  on  the 
part  of  young  people  of  what  may  be  expected. 

For  this  reason  it  is  a  part  of  sound  education  to  give 
a  certain  amount  of  attention  to  living  conditions  in  the 
high-school  curriculum.  It  is  as  important  as  book- 
keeping ;  for  of  what  avail  are  money  and  business,  if  the 
home  life  is  perilled?  Besides,  some  of  the  pupils  may 
have  attention  called  to  deficiencies  which  they  may 
show  talent  in  overcoming. 

Courses  in  Home  Economics  and  Household  Adminis- 
tration in  colleges  and  universities  should  be  directed 
to  careful  study  of  this  branch  of  sociology. 

There  is  a  great  opportunity  before  women's  clubs 
and  civic-improvement  associations  to  arouse  an  interest 
in  the  provision  of  suitable  shelter  for  the  young  families 
in  their  several  neighborhoods.  Concerted  movement 
by  the  Federation  could  revolutionize  public  opinion 
within  a  decade. 

The  student  of  social  science  may  well  say  that  the 
first  effort  should  be  directed  to  a  rise  in  the  pay  of  these 
educated  young  men ;  that  no  family  should  be  expected 
to  live  on  the  sums  here  considered ;  that  it  is  not  right 
even  to  consider  a  way  out  on  the  present  basis. 
Possibly  so.  Much  agitation  is  abroad  in  relation  to  the 


COST   OF   HOUSING  AND   TOTAL   INCOME.  IO$ 

pay  of  teachers,  clerks,  and  skilled  workmen,  but  that  is 
another  question  which  cannot  be  considered  here. 

The  salaried  class  has  so  enormously  increased  of 
late  years  because  of  the  great  consolidation  of  business 
interests  that  the  final  adjustment  has  not  been  made. 
The  one  fact  of  uncertain  tenure  of  position  and  uncer- 
tain promotion  has  profoundly  affected  living  condi- 
tions, ownership  of  the  family  abode,  and,  incidentally, 
marriage. 

There  are  prizes  enough,  however,  to  keep  the  young 
people  on  the  alert  for  advancement,  and  they  feel 
it  more  likely  to  come  if  they  establish  themselves  as 
if  it  had  arrived. 

There  is  no  denying  that  in  the  estimation  of  a  large 
number  of  the  groups  we  are  considering,  the  question 
of  neat  and  orderly  service,  the  capped  and  aproned 
maid,  the  liveried  bell-boy  and  butler,  express — like  the 
smoothly  shaven  lawn — a  certain  social  convention;  and 
because  it  means  expense,  the  house  in  working  order 
means  more  than  shelter:  it  sets  forth  pecuniary  stand- 
ing in  the  community.  So  long  as  this  means  social 
standing  also,  so  long  will  the  professional  and  business 
family  on  $2000  a  year  be  shut  out,  because  these 
adjuncts  to  a  luxurious  living  are  impossible.  Can 
society  afford  to  shut  out  the  intellectual  and  mentally 
progressive  element,  or  must  it  accept  as  normal  these 
salaries  and  make  it  respectable  to  begin  on  them?  It 


106  THE   COST   OF   SHELTER. 

is  the  strain  which  unessential  social  conventions  give  to 
the  young  families  that  leads  the  business  father  to  spec- 
ulate in  order  to  get  into  the  $io,ooo-a-year  class,  and 
that  leads  the  young  scientific  and  literary  man  to  take 
extra  work  outside  of  his  normal  duties.  This  sort  of 
thing  cannot  go  on  without  serious  danger  to  the  Repub- 
lic. Cleanliness  and  good  manners  should  be  insisted 
upon,  but  they  may  be  secured  on  $3000  a  year  if  too 
much  else  is  not  required.  How  to  secure  them  on 
$1500  is  a  problem  to  be  solved,  for  cleanliness  costs 
more  each  decade. 

After  all  is  said,  if  the  young  people  have  an  earnest 
purpose  in  life  it  is  easy  to  plan  a  method  of  living  and 
to  carry  it  out.  The  sacrifices  one  must  make  in  the 
house  superficially,  in  the  consideration  of  a  certain 
class,  are  cheerfully  borne  and  soon  forgotten. 

Little  discomforts  which  affect  only  one's  feelings  and 
not  one's  health  make  rather  good  stories  after  they  are 
over.  What  is  worth  while?  Are  we  become  too  sensi- 
tive to  little  things  ?  Do  we  imagine  we  show  our  higher 
civilization  by  discerning  with  the  little  princess  the  pea 
under  twenty- four  feather  beds? 

Let  our  shelter  be  first  of  all  healthful,  physically  and 
morally.  If  to  gain  these  qualities  we  must  take  a  house 
in  an  unfashionable  neighborhood,  it  should  not  cause 
distress.  Why  is  this  particular  region  unfashionable? 
Is  it  not  merely  because  certain  would-be  leaders  choose 


COST   OF  HOUSING  AND   TOTAL   INCOME.  1 07 

to  live  beyond  their  means  in  company  with  those  who 
are  able  to  spend  more? 

Why  not  be  honest  and  happy?    Live  within  your 
income  and  make  it  cover  the  truest  kind  of  living. 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

TO  OWN  OR  TO  RENT:    A  DIFFICULT  QUESTION. 

"Half  the  sting  of  poverty  is  gone  when  one  keeps  house  for 
one's  own  comfort  and  not  for  the  comment  of  one's  neighbors." — 
Miss  MULOCK. 

WHEN  the  ideals  of  an  older  generation  are  forced 
upon  a  younger,  already  struggling  under  new  and 
strange  environment,  the  effect  is  often  opposite  to  that 
intended.  The  elders  in  their  pride  of  knowledge,  and 
the  real-estate  promoters  in  their  greed  for  gain,  have 
been  urging  the  young  man  to  own  his  house  on  penalty 
of  shirking  his  plain  duty.  They  say  he  must  have  a 
home  to  offer  his  bride,  as  the  bird  has  a  nest.  Build- 
ing-loan associations,  homes  on  the  instalment  plan, 
appeal  to  the  sentiments  they  think  the  young  man 
ought  to  heed. 

The  young  man  is  often  modest,  almost  always  sensi- 
tive, and  he  prefers  to  bear  dispraise  rather  than  to 
tell  the  real  reason  he  hesitates.  His  ear  is  closer  to 
the  ground,  he  feels  even  if  he  cannot  express  the  doubt 

of  the  disinterestedness  of  the  land-scheme  promoter, 

108 


TO  OWN  OR  TO  RENT:    A  DIFFICULT  QUESTION.       IOQ 

of  the  wisdom  of  his  father.  He  knows  better  than  his 
elders  the  uncertainties  of  salaried  men,  young  men 
with  a  way  to  make  in  the  unstable  conditions  of  to-day. 

The  effect  of  this  well-meant  advice  is  not  to  hasten 
his  marriage,  but  to  put  it  off  because  he  is  not  allowed 
to  take  the  course  he  feels  safest.  Or  if  he  is  willing,  the 
parents  of  his  prospective  bride  are  not,  and  so  young 
people  do  not  marry  on  $1000  a  year,  for  fear  of  the 
elder  generation  and  their  supposed  wisdom. 

The  young  people  are  not  justified  by  present-day 
conditions  in  owning  a  house  on  an  income  of  $2000  a 
year  unless 

(1)  They  have  money  to  put  into  it  which  it  will  not 
cripple  them  for  life  to  lose; 

(2)  They  care  so  much  for  the  idea  of  ownership  that 
they  are  willing  to  take  the  risk  of  losing  one  half  the 
investment  should  they  be  compelled  to  move; 

(3)  They  possess  the  fortitude  to  give  it  up  at  the 
call  of  duty  after  all  they  have  lavished  on  it; 

(4)  They  care  enough  for  the  real  education  and  the 
real  fun  they  will  get  out  of  it  to  save  in  other  ways  what 
the  running  and  repairs  will  cost  over  and  above  the 
amount  estimated.     This  saving  will  be  largely  by  doing 
many  things  with  their  own  hands. 

To  be  bound  hand  and  foot  either  by  unsalable  real 
estate  or  by  sentiment  is  an  uncomfortable  condition 
for  the  young  family  who  may  find  itself  in  uncongenial 


110  THE    COST    OF    SHELTER. 

surroundings,  in  an  un healthful  situation,  or  who  may 
need  to  retrench  temporarily. 

Another  serious  objection  to  building  and  owning  a 
house  in  the  first  years  of  married  life  is  the  chance  that 
the  house  will  be  too  large  or  too  small,  or  the  railroad 
station  will  be  moved,  or  the  trolley  line  will  be  run  under 
the  garden  window,  or  a  smoking  chimney  will  fill  the 
library  with  soot  (although  the  latter  will  not  be  per- 
mitted in  the  real  twentieth-century  town). 

A  new  element  has  come  into  the  question  of  ownership 
by  the  family  of  limited  means  which  did  not  meet  the 
elder  generation  of  house-owners.  In  the  past  the 
repairs  were  confined  to  a  coat  of  paint  now  and  then, 
new  shingles,  an  added  hen-house,  or  a  bay  window. 
The  well  might  have  to  be  deepened,  but  little  expense 
was  put  into  or  onto  the  house  for  fifty  years.  The 
married  son  or  daughter  might  add  a  wing,  but  the  main 
house  once  built  was  never  disturbed.  In  the  modern 
plastic  condition  of  both  ideals  and  materials  this  is  all 
changed.  In  any  city -well  known  to  my  readers  how 
many  streets  bear  the  same  aspect  as  five  years  ago? 
In  any  suburban  village  made  familiar  by  the  trolley 
how  many  houses  are  the  same  as  five  years  ago  ?  Even 
if  their  outward  aspect  is  not  changed,  that  worst  of  all 
havocs,  new  plumbing,  has  been  put  in.  The  installa- 
tion of  neither  furnace  nor  plumbing  is  accomplished 
once  for.  all ;  at  the  end  of  ten  years  at  most  repairs  or 


TO  OWN  OR  TO  RENT:  A  DIFFICULT  QUESTION,     in 

replacement  must  be  made  on  penalty  of  loss  of  health. 
As  the  community  grows  in  wisdom  and  in  knowledge  it 
makes  sanitary  regulations  more  stringent  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  the  increase  in  expense  bears  most  heavily  on 
the  small  householder  with  a  family  whose  need  is  out  of 
proportion  to  the  income.  Many  a  parent  who  grieves 
the  loss  of  his  child  would  gladly  have  paid  a  reason- 
able sum  for  repairs,  but  would  have  been  in  the 
poor  debtors'  court  if  he  had  allowed  the  plumbers  to 
enter  his  house.  The  new  laws  made  since  he  bought 
his  house  require  diametrically  opposite  things,  and 
the  old  fittings  must  all  be  torn  out  as  well  as  four  times 
as  costly  put  in. 

It  is  a  sad  fact  that  the  advantages  of  all  modern  sanita- 
tion are  so  often  denied  to  those  who  need  and  who  would 
appreciate  them.  The  renter  has  here  an  advantage 
over  the  owner.  He  can  call  for  an  examination  by  the 
city  or  town  inspector  before  he  takes  a  lease;  the  capi- 
talist owner  must  then  put  matters  right.  But  as  yet 
a  man  has  a  right  to  live  with  leaky  sewer-  or  gas-pipes 
in  his  own  house  without  being  disturbed  by  an  inspector. 
How  far  into  the  century  this  will  be  allowed  is  uncertain; 
in  time  there  will  be  an  inspection  of  the  premises  of  the 
small  owner. 

The  only  remedy  in  sight  is  for  an  investment  of  capital 
in  up-to-date  houses  of  various  grades  in  city,  suburbs, 
and  country;  such  in  vestment  to  bring  4  percent,  not  40, 


112  THE   COST   OF   SHELTER. 

or  even  15,  unless  by  rise  of  land  values.  No  better 
use  of  idle  money  could  be  made  at  the  present  time. 
In  "Anticipations"  Mr.  Wells  writes:  "The  erection  of 
a  series  of  experimental  labor-saving  houses  by  some 
philanthropic  person  for  exhibition  and  discussion  would 
certainly  bring  about  an  extraordinary  advance  in  do- 
mestic comfort;  but  it  will  probably  be  many  years  be- 
fore the  cautious  enterprise  of  advertising  firms  approxi- 
mates to  the  economies  that  are  theoretically  possible 
to-day."  This  is  truer  now  than  when  Mr.  Wells  was 
writing. 

The  great  difficulty  in  the  way  is  the  first  outlay.  So 
many  things  will  have  to  be  designed,  patterns  made 
and  machinery  built  to  make  them;  for  this  advance 
in  construction  will  not  be  by  hand-made  things. 
There  will  be  more  head-work  put  into  the  various 
articles,  but  the  mass  of  constructive  material  must 
be  machine-made,  at  least  for  the  family  of  limited 
income.  And  these  articles  need  not  be  ugly.  There 
must  be  many  of  the  same  kind  in  the  world,  to  be  sure; 
but  if  the  design  fits  the  purpose,  this  may  not  be  an 
evil.  No  one  objects  to  a  beautiful  elm-tree  in  his 
field  because  in  hundreds  of  fields  there  are  similar 
elm-trees.  Slight  variations  in  finish,  color,  etc.,  can 
give  individuality  to  the  simplest  chair. 

Therefore  the  first  outlay  for  the  new  order  will  be 
beyond  the  purse  of  any  single  family  of  this  group. 


TO  OWN  OR  TO  RENT  :    A  DIFFICULT  QUESTION.       1 13 

If  we  had  learned  to  cooperate  sanely,  a  group  might 
undertake  it,  but  the  most  probable  method  will  be 
for  some  far-sighted  men  to  agree  to  sink  a  certain  amount 
of  money  in  experiment,  just  as  they  now  sink  money  in 
prospecting  a  mine  with  all  the  uncertainty  it  brings. 
Ability  to  risk  in  an  experiment  must  go  hand  in  hand 
with  capital  to  use. 

The  objection  commonly  made  is  that  all  individuality 
will  be  taken  away,  that  each  one  must  live  like  every 
one  else  in  the  neighborhood.  This  is  not  an  essential 
consequence,  but  will  it  be  so  impossible  to  have  a  cer- 
tain similarity  in  the  dwellings  of  like-minded  people? 
In  "  Anticipations  "  it  is  declared  that  "Unless  some  great 
catastrophe  in  Nature  breaks  down  all  that  man  has 
built,  these  great  kindred  groups  of  capable  men  and 
educated  adequate  women  must  be  under  the  forces  we 
have  considered  so  far,  the  element  finally  emergent 
amid  the  vast  confusions  of  the  coming  time."  * 

The  practical  people,  the  engineering  and  medical 
and  scientific  people,  will  become  more  and  more  homo- 
geneous in  their  fundamental  culture. 

The  decreasing  of  the  space  one  can  call  one's  own 
within  urban  limits  has  so  steadily  increased,  and  the 
need  for  freer  air  has  become  so  fully  recognized,  that 
the  case  of  the  single  householder  in  the  suburbs  and 

*  Anticipations,  pp.  153-4. 


114  THE   COST   OF   SHELTER. 

even  in  the  country  is  bound  to  press  harder  and  harder. 
The  group  system  elsewhere  referred  to,  with  central 
heating  plant  and  workers  of  all  grades  at  telephone- 
call,  will  make  possible  at  a  reasonable  rent  within  easy 
reach  of  the  city  the  single  household  of  one,  two,  or 
three,  as  the  case  may  be,  and  if  without  children  of 
their  own,  to  such  shelter  may  come  some  of  those  home- 
less little  ones  we  have  with  us  always,  to  share  in  the 
sun  and  wind  and  garden.  In  the  real  country,  with 
acres  instead  of  feet  of  land,  much  of  the  same  kind 
of  elaborate  simplicity  will  be  found.  Certainly  the 
same  kind  of  fire-proof  house  of  only  one  story  with 
more  light,  "roofs  of  steel  and  glass  on  the  louver 
principle,"  will  obviate  so  frequent  a  change  of  air 
as  a  shut-in  house  requires,  and  give  more  equable 
temperature. 

In  the  city?  Since  physicians  will  surely  be  more 
insistent  on  light,  as  well  as  fresh  air,  roof-gardens  and 
balconies  and  glazed  walls,  so  to  speak,  will  be  arranged 
by  the  architect  so  as  not  to  offend  the  eye  and  yet  to 
accomplish  the  results.  He  will  cease  from  trying  to 
put  the  new  ideas  of  the  twentieth  century  into  the  old 
houses  of  the  eighteenth  or  fifteenth  even,  and  that 
beauty,  which  is  fitness,  will  come  forth  from  the  tangle 
of  ugliness  everywhere.  If,  as  the  economist  tells  us, 
"cost  measures  lack  of  adjustment,"  then  the  perfectly 
adjusted  house  will  not  be  costly  in  reality,  it  will  be 


TO  OWN  OR  TO  RENT :    A  DIFFICULT  QUESTION.        115 

adapted  to  the  production  and  protection  of  effective 
human  beings. 

The  cellar  has  for  some  years  been  changing  to  a 
storage  for  trunks  instead  of  vegetables.  The  old- 
fashioned  housewife  exclaims  at  the  lack  of  storage  in 
the  house  of  to-day,  and  we  are  eliminating  it  still  more. 
A  twentieth-century  axiom  is,  "Throw  or  give  away 
everything  you  have  not  immediate  or  prospective  use 
for."  It  is  as  true  of  household  furniture  as  of  books; 
only  the  very  best  is  of  any  value  second-hand.  Our 
young  people  may  have  heirlooms,  but  they  will  buy  very 
little  in  the  way  of  sideboards  or  first  editions.  The 
moral  of  modern  tendencies  is,  buy  only  what  you  are 
sure  you  will  need  or  what  you  care  for  so  intensely 
that  you  will  keep  it  come  what  may.  Housing  of 
possible  treasures  is  far  too  costly 

At  the  foundation  of  the  ethical  side  of  ownership 
is  the  primitive  impulse  of  possession,  that  ownership 
which  led  to  wife-capture,  to  feudal  castles,  to  accumu- 
lation of  things,  and  to-day  is  expressed  by  the  man 
who  prefers  to  have  his  steak  cooked  in  his  own  kitchen 
even  if  it  is  burned. 

It  is  notorious  that  most  of  us  put  up  with  discom- 
fort if  it  is  caused  by  our  own.  A  family  of  eight  will 
use  one  bath-room  without  murmur  if  the  house  is  theirs, 
but  will  complain  loudly  if  the  landlord  will  not  add 
two  without  increasing  the  rent. 


Il6  THE   COST   OF   SHELTER. 

At  the  foundation  of  what  seem  exorbitant  rents  is 
this  demand  for  modern  improvements  in  old  houses, 
and  the  atrocious  carelessness  of  tenants  of  property. 
It  is  not  their  own,  and  they  do  not  obey  the  golden  rule 
in  the  use  of  it. 

Every  five  years  or  so  plumbing  laws  are  changed, 
and  if  an  old  house  is  touched  the  fixtures  and  pipes 
must  be  all  renewed.  Tenants  have  learned  to  fear 
the  sanitation  of  old  houses,  and  yet  abuse  the  appliances 
they  should  care  for. 

Public  ownership  or  corporate  ownership  or  an 
increased  lawlessness  are  accountable  for  a  disregard 
of  others'  rights  and  of  property  which  is  unnecessarily 
increasing  the  cost  of  living. 

I  have  said  elsewhere  that  it  is  not  because  the  land- 
lord does  not  want  children  in  the  house  but  because  he 
does  not  want  such  ill-bred  children,  vandals,  who  have 
no  respect  for  anything.  He  charges  high  rent  because 
his  investment  is  good  for  only  ten  years. 

The  shibboleth  of  duty  to  own  a  home  has  so  strong 
a  hold  on  the  moral  sense  of  the  people  that  it  is  made 
use  of  by  the  promoter  who  may  in  some  cases  think 
himself  the  philanthropist  he  intends  others  to  call  him. 
I  mean  that  the  duty  of  owning  and  the  heinousness 
of  paying  rent  are  so  ingrained  that  buying  on  the  instal- 
ment plan  has  seemed  a  righteous  thing,  even  with  the 
examples  of  broken  lives  in  plain  sight.  As  an  incentive 


TO  OWN  OR  TO  RENT:   A  DIFFICULT  QUESTION.     117 

to  save,  if  there  were  anything  to  save,  it  might  have 
been  justified  in  the  days  of  feudalism.  But  for  an 
independent  American  to  confess  that  he  cannot  put 
money  in  the  bank,  and  that  he  must  bind  himself  and 
his  family  to  slavery,  for  the  sake  of  owning  a  bit  of 
property  which  they  will  probably  wish  to  sell  before 
they  have  it  paid  for,  is  disgraceful.  Intelligent  men 
should  see  that  here  is  the  profit  in  the  transaction;  that 
enough  go  to  the  wall  to  pay  for  the  trouble  of  the  rest, 
just  as  in  life  insurance  enough  die  before  the  expected 
time  to  put  money  in  the  pockets  of  the  riskers. 

A  drunken  father  may  need  to  be  held,  but  the  young 
professor,  the  lawyer,  the  engineer,  should  have  sufficient 
self-respect  and  firmness  to  save  that  which  in  his  judg- 
ment is  necessary,  without  being  tied  by  "the  instalment 
plan."  This  method  is  a  very  viper  in  the  finances  of 
to-day.  The  wise  business  man  never  ventures  more 
than  he  can  afford  to  lose  in  a  risk,  but  the  man  who 
takes  bread  and  milk  from  his  children  to  invest  in 
"a  sure  thing"  takes  a  risk  with  what  is  not  his  to 
give. 

To  buy  land  for  investment  is  another  supposed  virtue, 
an  inheritance  from  the  time  when  slow  growth,  once 
started  in  a  given  direction,  kept  on,  so  that  great  acumen 
was  not  needed  to  buy;  but  that  is  all  changed  to-day. 
Only  those  "in  the  ring"  can  tell  where  the  "boom" 
will  go  next. 


Il8  THE   COST    OF   SHELTER. 

In  these  days  of  unparalelled  rapidity  of  change  in 
industrial  and  social  conditions  it  is  most  undesirable  for 
a  man  to  be  hampered  by  a  shell  which  is  too  large  to 
carry  about  with  him  and  too  valuable  to  be  left  behind. 
To  each  reader  will  occur  instances  of  the  refusal  of 
an  advantageous  offer  because  the  family  home  could 
not  be  realized  upon  at  once,  the  location  once  so  favor- 
able had  become  undesirable,  and  the  values  put  into 
it  could  not  be  recovered  because  of  social  conditions 
following  industrial  changes. 

The  keen  observer  hesitates  in  view  of  all  these  con- 
ditions to  advise  any  young  man  to  invest  in  real  estate 
for  a  home  beyond  a  sum  which  he  can  afford  to  lose  if 
need  arises  to  move.  These  changes  carry  a  need  for 
mobilization  of  its  army  of  workers.  The  encumbrance 
of  family  Lares  and  Penates  cannot  be  tolerated. 
Only  a  small  per  cent  of  young  men  are  to-day  sure 
of  remaining  in  the  city  in  which  they  begin  business. 
What  folly  to  encumber  themselves  with  real  estate 
which,  sold  at  a  sacrifice,  brings  barely  half  its  price! 
Moral  exhorters  have  not  carefully  considered  this  side 
of  the  question  in  their  arguments  for  house-owning 
and  family-rearing  as  anchors  to  the  young  man. 

The  fact  noted  earlier  is  a  case  in  point.  After  the 
wedding-cards  were  out  the  bridegroom  was  trans- 
ferred to  the  charge  of  the  company's  office  in  another 
city. 


TO  OWN  OR  TO  RENT:   A  DIFFICULT  QUESTION.     119 

The  expenses  necessitated  by  these  frequent  removals 
make  an  unaccounted-for  item  in  many  incomes. 

If  the  young  couple  have  saved  or  inherited  between 
them,  say,  $3000,  shall  they  build  a  home  with  it  ?  De- 
cidedly not.  Because  the  house  will  cost  $5000  before  they 
are  done.  Not  only  because  of  the  unexpected  in  strikes 
and  change  in  prices  of  materials,  but  because,  as  the 
plans  take  shape,  the  wife  or  the  husband  or  both  will 
see  so  many  little  points  which  they  will  ask  for,  the 
paper  plan  not  having  conveyed  a  definite  idea  to  either. 
An  excellent  plan  was  carried  out  by  a  college  woman. 
She  made  a  model  to  scale  in  pasteboard,  of  such  a  size 
that  every  essential  detail  was  shown  in  its  relation  to 
other  portions  of  the  structure. 

Even  if  these  young  people  do  not  yield  at  the  moment 
of  building,  they  will  probably  wish  they  had  yielded  when 
they  come  to  live  in  the  house.  There  will  be  nothing  for 
it  but  to  mortgage  the  place  to  make  it  satisfactory. 
One  cannot  take  up  a  newspaper  without  finding  notice 
after  notice,  reading,  "Must  be  sold  to  pay  the  mortgage." 

Exorbitant  rent  is  of  course  social  waste,  and  society 
must  protect  its  ablest  young  people  from  their  own 
folly;  but  when  they  understand  the  rules  of  the  financial 
game  better  they  will  lend  themselves  more  readily  to 
some  cooperative  plan  of  relief. 

It  is,  as  I  well  know,  rank  heresy,  but  I  firmly  believe 
that  building  and  owning  of  houses  can  be  afforded 


120  THE    COST    OF    SHELTER. 

only  by  those  having  the  higher  limit  of  income,  $3000 
to  $5000  a  year,  unless  the  person  has  a  permanent 
position  or  a  business  of  great  security,  and  in  these 
days  who  can  be  sure  of  anything? 

When  the  land-scheme  promoter  advertises  homes  on 

^ 
the  instalment  plan/ beware  of  the  trap! 

Let  no  one  buy  in  the  suburbs  from  a  sense  of  duty 
and  then  hate  the  life. 

Comfort  in  living  is  far  more  in  the  brains  than  in 
the  back. 

It  is  so  easy  for  a  man  or  woman  with  one  set  of  ideals 
to  do  that  which  another  would  consider  impossible 
drudgery. 

My  final  advice  is  that  the  sensible  young  couple  both 
of  whom  agree  about  essentials,  and  who  are  willing 
and  glad  to  work  together  for  a  common  end,  and  who 
love  nature  and  gardening  and  believe  in  family  life 
so  strongly  as  not  to  miss  the  crowd  and  theatres,  may 
safely  start  a  home  in  the  country  with  a  garden,  and 
pets  for  the  children,  if  they  have  a  reasonable  pros- 
pect of  ten  years  in  one  spot.  Let  them  make  the 
place  attractive  for  some  family,  even  if  they  have  to 
leave  it. 

The  women  of  this  group  will,  I  believe,  have  the 
qualities  Mr.  Wells  predicts:  not  only  intelligence  and 
education,  but  a  reasonableness  and  reliability  not  always 
found  to-day. 


TO  OWN  OR  TO  RENT:    A  DIFFICULT  QUESTION.       121 

Unless  a  reasonable  prospect  of  ten  years'  occupancy 
is  assured,  then  begin  life  in  a  rented  house,  not  neces- 
sarily in  a  flat.  Begin  with  a  few  things  of  your  own 
some  which  have  been  yours  for  years,  some  which 
you  have  bought  together  and  which  have  a  meaning 
for  one  of  you  and  are  not  irritating  to  the  other. 

Devote  a  part  of  your  leisure  to  a  critical  study  of 
the  house  you  would  like,  draw  plans,  make  sketches 
in  color,  study  color  effects,  learn  about  fabrics,  collect 
them  for  the  future.  You  will  find  an  amusing  and 
instructive  occupation. 

The  essential  point  is  to  begin  this  life  on  two  thirds 
of  what  you  have  reason  to  expect  as  the  year's  income; 
keep  the  rest  invested  or  in  the  bank.  There  are  to-day 
many  temptations  to  spend  for  things  attractive  in  them- 
selves but  not  necessary  to  the  effective  life.  If  friends 
are  so  silly  as  to  rally  you  on  living  in  an  unfashionable 
quarter,  ask  them  in  to  see  your  sketches  and  plans,  and 
talk  them  into  enthusiasm  over  the  idea.  Do  missionary 
work  with  them  rather  than  be  ridiculed  out  of  your  con- 
victions. It  sometimes  seems  as  if  young  people  had  no 
convictions,  as  if  they  drifted  with  the  wind  of  newspaper 
suggestion.  So  do  not  allow  your  friends  to  drive  you  to 
greater  expense  than  you  have  determined  upon,  lest  the 
end  of  the  first  two  years  of  life  find  you  in  debt  with  no 
fair  start  for  the  baby,  whose  life  should  begin  in  an 
atmosphere  of  quiet  assurance  that  all  is  well.  It  is 


122  THE  COST   OF    SHELTER. 

not  impossible  that  the  nervous  irritability  and  reckless- 
ness of  many  are  due  to  the  atmosphere,  of  childhood. 
Then  remember  that  the  welfare  and  security  oj  the 
child  is  the  wacthword  oj  the  juture. 


A   FEW    BOOKS. 

Anticipations.     H.  G.  Wells. 

Mankind  in  the  Making.     H.  G.  Wells.     Scribners. 

A  Modem  Utopia.     H.  G.  Wells.     Scribners. 

Twentieth-century    Inventions:     a    Forecast.       Geo.    Sutherland 

Longmans,  Green,   &  Co. 

The  Level  of  Social  Motion.     Michael  Lane.     Macmillan. 
The  Theory  of  the  Leisure  Class.     Thorstein  Veblen.     Macmillan. 
The  Woman  who  Spends.     Whitcomb  and  Barrows. 
Physical  Deterioration:  Its  Causes  and  their  Cure.    A.  Watt  Smyth. 

E.  P.  Button. 
Shelter.     Syllabus  94,   Home  Education  Dept.,  Univ.   of    N.   Y. 

State  Library,  Albany. 
Report  of  the  Tenement-house  Commission. 

123 


INDEX. 


A 

PAGE 

Adaptation 48,  51,  66 

lack  of 40 

"Anticipations" 112,  113 

Advisers,  home 71 

Age,  spirit  of  the i 

Air 47,  74,  85,  99,  100,  113,  114 

Altruria 10 

Albert's,  Prince,  advice 39 

Apartment  houses 46,  53,  57,  58,  90,  91,  98,  102 

Architects 1 8,  44,  65,  73,  88,  114 

Architecture,  domestic 61 

Arts,  constructive 82 

B 

Bachelor 37,  57 

apartment 57,  59 

Back,  bending  the 41 

strength  of 43 

Badges  of  toil 42 

Boarding  houses 51,  59 

origin  of 34 

Breakfast 55,  56,  74 

Building 84,  88,  99,  109,  1 10 

laws 96 

loan  associations 108 


126  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Building  trades 96 

Bureau  of  Labor,  U.  S 81,  96 


C 

Capital 20,  89,  1 1 1,  113 

Care  of  rooms 36,  37 

human  body 52 

Carpentry  in  high  school 45 

Centrifugal  force 19,  44 

Children 20,  28,  30,  32,  88,  100,  101,  114,  116,  120 

deterioration  of  manners  of 16 

Choice 92 

City 20,  85,  89,  90,  91,  no,  in,  1 14 

houses 34 

Civilization 19 

Class  to  work  for 8 

Cleaning  machine 77 

Cleanliness 106 

Clothing 92,  93,  98 

Colonial  houses 3 

period,  housebuilding  of 4 

Southern  type  of,  houses 45 

Commuter,  trials  of 56 

Companionship 55 

Compromise 32,  33,  55 

Concrete 73 

Consciousness,  social 65 

Construction 37,  46,  90,  95,  96 

Consumption,  destructive 6 

Conveniences 46,  7 1,  94 

Cooperation 6,  9,  17,  20 

Cost 33,  36,  47,  84,  88,  90,  92,  94,  96,  1 14 

increasing 1 1,  12,  89,  95 

of  housing  and  total  income 97-107 

per  person  and  per  family 81-95 

Country 10,  29,  55,  56,  57,  61,  81,  85,  90,  91,  94,  in,  114 

Crowding 28,  47,  88,  99 


INDEX.  127 


PAGE 

Dayton  scheme 94 

Debt 20,  39 

Demand 97,  102 

business 35,  38 

Democracy 16,  95 

Deterioration  of  houses 34,  45 

Dirt 72,  74 

Discomforts 45,  106 

Discontent 15 

Dishonesty  in  standards 17,  40 

Dole,  Charles i 

Domestic  comfort 112 

machine 96 

progress,  retarded 65 

unrest 40,  46 

Drainage 85 

Drudgery 83,  120 

Dust 43 

E 

Economics,  home,  exhibit 88 

household 104 

social 103 

Economist 114 

Economy 101,112 

Effective  life 49,  50,  63,  64 

workers 65 

Effectiveness 50,  101 

Efficiency 19,  50,  63,  64,  83,  95 

loss  of 13,  106 

Energy 49,  50 

Engineering,  definition  of 50 

Engle's  law 103 

Environment 9,  10,  48,  108 

Euthenics 12,  81 

Evolution 9,  48 


128  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Expense 96,  no,  in,  121 

Expenses 1 7,  39,  83,  101,  1 19 

operating 17,98 

Experience  in  doing 61 

lack  of 40,  47,  6 1 

Experts,  house 71 

Extravagance 39 

F 

Family.  .2,  33,  68,  88,  91,  94,  100,  101,  102,  103,  104,  105,  106,  120 

table 16 

Farm  life 4 

Flat 10,  32,  35,  46,  58,  98,  99,  121 

Flats 35,  36 

Floors,  hard-wood 42,  43 

lignolith 72 

Food 19,  98 

Force 49,  50 

for  regeneration 8 

Foreigner 28,  31,  32 

Friction  due  to  house 1 1 

G 

Garden 32,  33,  55,  85,  103,  114 

Gardening 55,  120 

Gas-stoves 42,  46 

Group  system 28,  1 14 

H 

Habit,  perils  of 56 

Habits 6,  14,  19 

Hands 41,  42 

Heating 28,  65,  73,  104 

Home 14,  29,  43,  45,  118,  119 

abandonment  of 40 

advisers 71 

Anglo  Saxon  meaning  of , i 

building  of 45 


INDEX.  129 

PAGE 

Home  economics 104 

feeling 78 

life 37,  99,  104 

love  of 2 

makers 99 

means  privacy 3 

ties  loosened 38 

Homeless 38 

Homestead 5,  6,  31 

Hospitality 75 

Hot  water 46,  47,  75,  91 

House 43,  71,  78,  82,  83,  85,  90,  91,  93,  94,  96,  97,  99, 

loo,     101,  102,  103,  106,   108,   109,   114,   121 

building 57,  95 

Colonial •. 5 

evidence  of  social  standing 16 

-keepers. 30,  47 

-keeping,  twentieth-century 40 

-maids,  physical  inefficiency  of 12 

planning  in  High  School 45 

plans 89 

suburban 32 

Houses 20,  26,  27,  28,  29,  62,  104,  no,  112,  116 

city 34 

Colonial,  of  New  England 3 

four  classes  of 31 

modern 33 

Housing 16,  17,  19,  20,  37,  48,  57,  81,  95,  97,  98,  100 

I 

Ideal 5,  1 8,  20,  39,  52,  54,  55,  79,  85,  88,  100,  108,  120 

Ideas 4,  30,  78,  101,  114 

Improvements 61,  101 

Income 17,  19,  20,  30,  38,  39,  41,  49,  51,  53,  84, 

92,  96,  97,  zoo,  102,  107,  109,  in,  119 

Individual 57,  100 

Industries,  disappearance  of 8 

Installment  plan 108,  117 

Invasion  of  residential  districts 35 


130  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Invention ; 1 1 

Investment , in,  117 

K 

Kitchen 102 

accompaniments 33 

remodelled,  in  Providence 67,  69,  72 

Kitchenette 36,  92 

L 

Labor,  Bureau  of 93,  96 

-saving  devices 82 

Lack 15 

of  adaptation 40 

business  training 96 

experience 40 

faithful  service 35 

harmony 35 

study 35 

Land 4,  20,  46,  47,  55,  97,  98,  102,  114,  117,  134 

Landlord 46,  47 

Land-scheme  promoter 108,  120 

Lane,  Mr.  Michael 88 

Leaven  of  progress 8 

Legacy 31,  38,  40,  42,  44,  47 

"Level  of  Social  Motion" 88 

Life 98 

effective 49,  50,  62 

frontier "      18 

fuller 12 

home 99 

open  air 54 

private,  shabby 16 

restrained 9 

Light 47,  114 

Living,  decent 47,  84,  92 

sane 66,  82 

cost  of 1 16 


INDEX.  131 

• 

PAGE 

Location 48 

Lodge,  Sir  Oliver .- 48 

M 

Machinery 5,  41,  58,  65,  66,  112 

Maid's  rooms 36 

Making  of  things 36 

Man,  early 100 

primitive.  .  .  '. 2 

Manners 16,  17,  75,  106,  122 

Marriage,  responsibility  of 8 

Meals 92,  93 

Mechanical 51,  83 

progress 64 

Menial 51,  52 

Middle,  leaven  of  progress  in 8 

Model  Tenement  Association,  New  York 52,  81,  99 

Money 85,  95,  108 

basis 51 

measure  of  success 63 

spender 4 

value 9 

Morison,  Geo.  S 83 

Morris  Building  Co 28,  91 

Mulock,  Miss 99 

N 

Nasmyth,  James 42 

Natural  selection 64 

Nature 10,  64,  113,  120 

love  of 32 

return  to 55 

Neill,  Chas.  P.,  extracts  from  address  by 7 

New  Epoch,  The 83 

O 

Opinion,  public 65 

Owen,  Robert 9 


132  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Own  or  rent 108-122 

Ownership 108,  109,  no,  115,  116,  119 

P 

Parks 88,  90 

Parsons,  Wm.  Barclay 49 

Patronage  of  the  arts 15 

Permanence  in  homestead,  lack  of 5,  38 

Pettingill,  Miss 43 

Philanthropist 20,  95,  112,  1 16 

Philanthropy 44,  52,  55 

Physical  ill-being  in  domestics 12 

school  children 12 

wage-earners 12 

Place  of  the  house 48,  62 

Plans 103,  119 

Plumbing 33,  48,  no,  1 16 

Possibilities  in  sight 63,  80 

Preeminence,  social 15 

Primitive  man 2 

Principle,  fixed 101 

race 10,  29 

Privacy 2,  7,  35,  58,  98,  99 

Private  life  shabby 16 

Productive  work 6 

Progress 13,  19,  48,  65,  79 

leaven  of 8 

race 9 

Protection 3,  6,  100,  115 

Q 

Question,  a  difficult 108-122 

R 

Race  principle i,  10,  29 

Readjustment 14,  8&  101 


INDEX.  133 

PAGE 

Real  estate 20,  109,  1 18 

Refuge 3 

Regeneration,  force  for 8 

Rent 10,  20,  36,  38,  46,  54,  62,  73,  81,  84,  85,  91, 

92,  93,  97,  98,  99,  loo,  102,  114,  116,  119,  121 

or  own 108,  1 22 

-Payers 37 

Residential  districts,  invasion  of 35 

Responsibility  of  marriage 8 

Restaurant 19,  36,  41 

Restrained  life 9 

Return  to  nature 54 

Rights  to  property,  etc 7 

Roosevelt,  President 13 

S 

Sanitarian 90 

Sanitary 27,  28,  30,  71,  81,  83,  85,  89,  96,  98,  121 

English,  Inspectors  Association,  President  of 88 

Sanitation 71,  in,  116 

Saving 29,  96,  98,  109,  117 

Schools,  public 8 

Science 79,  80 

Scrubbing 40,  74 

Selection,  natural 64 

Self-interest 63 

-preservation 8 

Service 98,  105 

faithful,  lack  of 40 

Sewer  connection,  houses  without 33 

Shelter.  .  .2,  6,  7,  8,  10,  14,  17,  19,  26,  28,  30,  36,  37,  48,  52,  54,  59, 
62,  82,  83,  84,  85,  89,  91,  92,  94,  99,  loo,  101,  104,  105,  106 

Shelter,  marrying  for 57 

Sheltering  the  children 7 

Simplicity 49 

Social  advance 63,  79 

aspiration 15 

betterment 52,  54,  81 

conditions 37,  1 18 


134  INDEX. 

PAGE 

Social  conscience 30,  52 

consciousness 65 

convention 20,  105,  106 

economics 103 

ostracism 29 

pleasure 18 

preeminence 15 

science 104 

significance 28,  97 

standing 17.  105 

welfare 54,  84 

Society 18,  19,  30,  65,  83,  89,  100,  1 19 

Sociologist 88 

Sociology 104 

Somerville 73 

Space. 53,  84,  85,  99 

diminishing 11,113 

Spender 47 

Spirit  of  the  age i 

Standards 17,  18,  19,  53,  94 

Stone,  Mary  Lowell,  Home  Economics  Exhibit 88 

Structure 48 

Stuckert,  Mrs 102 

Study,  lack  of 40 

Suburban 85,  90,  no 

houses 32 

living 89 

square 53 

Suburbs 81,  90,  91,  98,  in,  120 

Sun-parlors 54 

Sunlight  Park,  England 94 

T 

Table,  family 16 

Tax 6 1 

Temporary  home 38 

Tenant 46,  47,  50,  53,  91,  99 

Tenement 20,  81 ,  90,  99 

N.  Y.  Model,  Association 52 


INDEX.  135 

PAGE 

Tennyson 63 

Tenure,  permanence  of 76 

shortness  of 18 

uncertain 105 

Transition  period 4 

Tuberculosis 7 


U 

U.  S.  Bureau  of  Labor 81 

Unrest,  domestic 40 

Unsanitary 51 

Utopian 79 


V 

Veblen 15,  16 

Ventilation 98 

Village  houses 32 

influx  from 34 

W 

Wage-earners 12,  37,  47,  81 

Waste,  conspicuous 15,  16,  19 

Watchword  of  the  future 122 

Water,  hot 46 

Wedding  presents 60 

Well-being  of  community  threatened 14 

Wells,  H.  G 31,  44,  63,  72,  75,  88,  103,  112,  120 

White  plague 99 

Wife 92,  93 

Window 74,  98 

Woman 58,  82 

Women,  corporation  of 29 

Women's  work 94 

Work,  menial 51 

productive 6 

women's 94 


136 


INDEX. 


PAGE 


Workers,  effective  .....................................  /*.     65 

Working  men  ...........................................   103 


Young  people 8,  38,  39,  104,  106,  109,  119 

Youth,  American 8 


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